Blog 10

The three discourses we have been talking about in class are family, media, and pop-culture and how we can relate them to our Mystory projects. After thinking about each, I realize that they are all of importance when speaking of Brown vs. Board of Education. Family, for instance, played a large part during the time of this case. Black families and white families were pretty much against each other when it came to their children being integrated. The plaintiffs in this case were 12 families who were tired of having themselves and their children segregated and decided to do something about it. After the case, white families did not agree and passed on this racism down to their children by taking their own kids out of integrated schools, when their complaints did not work. Family was an important aspect for African Americans back then because family is all they had for support. The media also played a large part in the way society felt because the media just goes along with the consensus view, and sometimes even established the consensus view. According to my father, their portrayal of this case was not a good one. They made it seem like the world was coming to an end and that integration was ridiculous. Even newspapers were at it, having the audacity to write derogatory remarks in their column. With the help of the media, the pop culture at the time was absolutely no integration. The only people that agreed with integration were the African Americans, while everybody else was flat out against it, especially in more southern places like North and South Carolina where my father grew up. Because of the negativeness of popular culture, many African Americans were harassed, beaten, and even forced to leave, although many left on their own to more northern states who were adopting integration.