The Problem Of Black Trauma Porn
The Problem Of Black Trauma Porn
In his book, “Black Victim to Black Victor”, Adam B. Coleman shares Census data that show 60% of black Americans (27,273,482) live in 10 of our 50 states. These 10 states, according to the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau are New York, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, and Louisiana.
The other 40% (18,182,322) of people who identify as black, live in the other 40 states.
That means in 10 states, the average black population is 2,727,348 and in the other 40 states the average population is 454,558. However, there are states such as Wyoming, that have a black population of 11,306 (2%), Montana with 12,007 (1%), and Vermont with 12,936 (2%). There are twelve states that have a black population comprising less than 5% of their total population.
Black Americans are about 13.6% (45,455,804) of the total American population (334,233,854).
This also suggests most white Americans have not had a meaningful interaction with a black person.
The media consistently portrays blacks in the worst possible light. Unfortunately, this happens because black people create their own bad situations. A recent shooting at Jacksonville Beach, Florida involved mostly black individuals at what was supposed to be a community event. This event occurred over the weekend and still leads as a story on the local morning news 6 days later.
The media continue to show pictures of the mostly black crowd at the beach as they opine about the shootings. If it were not for the shootings, this event probably would not have been an event the media would have featured on the morning news.
Kathy Barnette points out in her book “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain” that we have been reduced to a group of people characterized by a culture of saggy pants, broken English, rap music, and crime-ridden, vulgarity-slinging loudmouths with chips on our shoulders. Black people morph into these caricatures the media creates and help bring them to life in the states and communities they live in. This becomes how whites who live in the 40 states with low black populations are educated about the black experience.
This degrading black behavior, that many blacks embrace, is broadcast throughout America feeding the hunger white Americans have as they try to understand the black experience. This bad black behavior teaches people of other ethnicities how we want to be treated. Unfortunately, as Barnette states, this poor behavior also reveals how we think about ourselves as a black community.
This constant diet of bad behavior by black Americans fed to the masses by the media outlets is black trauma porn.
Black trauma porn is defined as experiences that produce psychological injury or pain usually via some sort of media outlet. The injury or pain continually broadcasted, caters to an unhealthy voyeuristic, irresistible desire for, or interest in, a particular subject.
The subject in this matter is the black experience. Not only are we the stars in our own “porn” but we help write the script with our continued bad behavior. Then just like stars of actual porn movies, we wonder why people look at and treat us differently.
What other way is there for a white person, who has little to no exposure to black people, to learn about who we are today, as black men and women? How do we educate people we might encounter who come from one of the 40 states with a low black population but are fed a steady diet of black trauma porn?
There really is no definitive answer to this dilemma. I can only suggest that every time we encounter someone of a different ethnicity, we present ourselves how we want to be seen and treated as a person. Sometimes we have the opportunity to educate someone through adult conversations about who we are as a people.
Obviously, there is no guarantee we will change anyone’s idea of what an entire group of people are like; however, we can be that agent of change that begins to open their hearts and minds to a new narrative.
In addition to enhancing our own self-respect, we have to be respectful of other people. No matter where you live or who you are, present yourself how you want to be seen. If you want to be seen as a professional, then act professional. If you want to be seen as a good neighbor, then act like a good neighbor. Show the people you encounter that you respect yourself.
Don’t give the media the opportunity to use black trauma porn as a way to describe who we are as black people. We must stop being the caricatures of mayhem and foolishness the media portrays us to be. Whether we find ourselves in the 10 states populated by 60% of the black population or the 40 states that have a black population of 10% or less, we have to remember we owe it to those who came before us and those who will come after us, to represent black people in a positive light.
We need to live so that no opinion or conclusion will be made about who we are because of our skin color. The final conclusion about who we are should be based on the information and experiences we have lived which have formed our individual nature as a person.
If we live by those words, black American lives will change.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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Very true. And the same can be said of any demonized group (or person). While it behoves us all to avoid judgement based on other than personal experience, it is difficult to avoid filing the negative stereotypes we pick up in media in our subconscious. Let's all step up our game.
The black community is being exploited by the people selling those images. Some of those people are white liberals selling racism. Some of them are white racists selling racism. . But some of them are within the black community, and they are profiting from trauma too, exploiting suffering for monetary gain. The image problem is real, because the trauma is real and pervasive, particularly in the inner cities. Im not black. As an American, and as a human being, I’d like to see the dysfunction in our society improved. I’d like to see the racial animus that has been stoked in the last 20 years tamped down. But there are forces that rely upon division and discord to make money and gain political power. They also enable criminality and destructive personal choices.It’s difficult to fix these things while the government and Left encourages them, and while popular culture glorifies bad behavior.