Whitmore considers the mainstream of these images, enshrined in the ghetto of African-Americans’ poverty and hopelessness, as the wellspring of a twisted and unrealistic aspiration that has acted in the most cutthroat manner of capitalist economics.

“The media industry is beginning to act in the same way as the fast food industry,” said hip-hop scholar and veteran music video director Rubin Whitmore II on Wednesday night at the UWM Fireside Lounge. “The consequence of excessive media consumption is as deadly as obesity. It imposes on our identity directly.”

Whitmore began his speech about the portrayal of African-Americans in the media by showing the music video “The Good Life,” by rapper Kanye West. Despite the majority of the public’s seeing Kanye West as the “good guy” in the industry (compared to 50 Cent and others), his lyrics still portray what Whitmore considers the same illusion. Those such as Ice Cube and NWA who steered the music industry from hip hop into gangster rap in the late 1980s claimed drugs, violence, and sexism as a portrayal of reality.

“Music videos, the powerful combination of music and film, have become a device similar to water torture as we can see today,” said Whitmore. “After a while, the repetition of songs on the radio and the same music videos on the popular channel begin to bring about similar desires and connections in the viewer.”

This perspective can also be analyzed by the media industry as a whole. Whitmore mentioned a correlative 1946 and 2005 study of black children’s racial preferences. The study found that for both of the years, a majority of the children chose the white-skinned doll (“the nice doll”) to play with over the black doll (“the bad doll”).

The representation of African Americans throughout history in the media was noted by Whitmore to have changed a lot in some ways and changed a little in others. There is a dichotomy between the African American featured in the minstrel show and the action movie, said Whitmore.

In his presentation, Whitmore used a photograph of a billboard near Port Washington Rd. and Martin Luther King Dr., which featured an escaped convict, Harold Wilson, “caught for a reward.” Whitmore used this as an example of the power of images, which truly may say a thousand words, even if we don’t recognize it at the time.

This point was illustrated further by Whitmore with a quote by the late poet and writer Allen Ginsberg: “He who controls the images, controls the minds.”

Whitmore said this quote portrays how people rarely distance themselves from the billboards, advertisements, TV shows, movies, songs, music videos, news, and other media in their lives.

The inability of our generation to be media literate enables a steady digestion of images and media forms that may or may not be “junk,” Whitmore said. Children whose consciousness of their own identities has not matured are extremely vulnerable to the powerful images and assumptions of the media, he said. Whitmore considers the mainstream of these images, enshrined in the ghetto of African-Americans’ poverty and hopelessness, as the wellspring of a twisted and unrealistic aspiration that has acted in the most cutthroat manner of capitalist economics.

From bling and crack slingin’ to sports and entertainment, Whitmore asks, “Where are the role models in the media for the youth who don’t make it to the NBA and the big record contracts, and want a change in this world?”

The perspective of rapper Ice Cube heeds notice yet again in the two decades since gangster rap began. Is the lifestyle of making the most in the shortest amount of time off the well-sake of an already impoverished community the continual reality of survival in the social conditions of the majority of African Americans today?

Whitmore is currently working on two new documentaries to add to the several music videos he has produced in the past for artists such as Goodie Mob, Gang Starr and DMX. His work today is focused on the creation of alternative institutions of media.

“The bridge to the generation gaps, social gaps, and racial gaps of society come through the potential of the media to make change, not money,” said Whitmore.

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