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Sarah Abdalla

Professor Cerri- Morgan

English Composition 1302

02 March 2018/ Week 7

High Quality Nonsense

In this modern day and age, it becomes so easy to influence and create impacts

through small subtle habits. Social media expands the horizons of the reach its content

has every day by thousands of new members. Music is blared through speakers in

restaurants, malls, and any other public place of leisure. People are constantly

surrounded by messages being implanted in their minds and the media men are great at

doing it. Inherently, people will begin to follow this message that has been embedded in

their thoughts subliminally. Although most music is found to be lighthearted lyrics over

a mellow beat, there are morally demeaning songs that tear own other ethnicities and

races through cultural differences, skin tones, and traditional values, through “coon

songs” which were common in the music halls (Anti-Black Racism, 1).

This practice isn’t a recent phenomenon either, but it has been building for

centuries off of the backs of immigrants and foreign laborers. In 19th century England,

music began wildly popular during the Age of Imperialism. New technology, new found

freedoms, and new markets, so the cherry on top was new music. However, the music

created this time had very disturbing immoral undertones that surfaced more blatantly

with every round of success. “This was blackface minstrelsy. Where other forms of

entertainment might include racial stereotypes, blackface minstrelsy, also generally

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known at the time as “nigger minstrelsy”, was wholly built around the stereotyping of

Africans or Black Americans.” (Anti- Black Racism, 5)

As much as this music disgraced the image of the black man, it didn’t stop there.

It made constructing an identity and finding a place in society so much harder for

colored people. No longer were they welcomed to have their place, they were shoved out

and onto the streets for what everyone thought they were like. Their identity was

demolished in the eye of the white man, so finding a home in the midst of all this chaos

was ridiculous. “The minstrel was a clown figure who, at the same time as reinforcing

negative stereotypes of black people, gave delight to the audience by mimicking and

making ridiculous established elite figures, such as the politician or headmaster.” (Anti-

Black Racism, 6) Nobody wanted to have such a burden such as that of colored people in

their community because it would cause nerves to rise.

There are so many opportunities to implement healthier images of different

ethnicities that aren’t being taken advantage of. Instead of dwelling on the division

between races by skin complexion, traditional values, or work force, music production

should endorse the unification of these different races. A larger audience with a better

message is all these companies have to lose. Take the risk, they might like what they

find.
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Works Cited

Mullen, John. “Anti-Black Racism in British Popular Music (1880-1920).” Revue

française de civilisation britannique, XVII, no. 2, 2012, pp. 61–80.,

doi:10.4000/rfcb.674.