Jonathan Markovitz's Racial Spectacles

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In Jonathan Markovitz’s Racial Spectacles: Explorations in Media, Race, and Justice he defines and argues the existence of racial spectacled in our society today. Through the reading and the general understanding of racial spectacle, I define it as the events that take place in massive media that virtually touches every realm of communication and popular culture in society. Interpretations may vary based on the event. The concept of racial spectacle is related to how Michael Omi and Howard Winant define racial project in their article Racial Formation. From my understanding of the reading, a racial project is a task, action, or law that is set in place in order to shorten or widen the racial divide in society. Racial projects are both positive and negative and in …show more content…

The racial project in this is, of course, a lynching. The racial spectacles are how lynchings are surfaced throughout the people. A lynching may be televised on television for people to watch. In addition, a lynching may be written in a local town’s newspaper for the people to read. Due to the fact that the lynching is carried out by so many people for this becomes a spectacle. The racial project of a lynching works towards the side of white supremacists because white people use it as a tactic to inflict their power over black people. MAny Klu Klux Klan members that lynched black people use religion as manner of justifying their actions. Former President Barack Obama reminded the nation back in February of 2015 when he was asked about Muslim intervention and the terrors that were used to justify religion. The president had this to say “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of

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