Black Hollywood Unchained

I recently listened to this panel of contributors to Ishmael Reed's collection of essays for Black Hollywood Unchained and found it highly informative as well as humorous. Reed and co-panelists Justin Desmangles, Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor, Halifu Osumare, and Marvin X Jackmon spoke at the San Francisco Public Library about the problematic ways in which African-Americans are depicted in Hollywood films. In addition, Reed and other panelists discuss literature, politics, critiques of The Wire's David Simon, Nollywood, Black Arts Movement, and even Islam in Africa. The discussion is always interesting, despite some of the slight audio problems. In the second part of the talk, Reed articulates exactly why the troubling tendency of sexism or misogyny in the media being blamed on black men is not something we can ignore. For Reed, it was never about denying misogyny exists among black men, but to ask why is it that the media often relies on images of pathologized black men for misogyny when it is widespread among men of various ethnic backgrounds. This ties in with some of his past commentary on the Jim Crow media.