I am taking notes/quoting from this website: https://bis235au2015.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/straight-outta-compton-revealing-the-history-of-racism-and-stereotypes-of-black-men-in-popular-music-culture/
Relevance Today:
“Using their music, these men were able to shed light on their life in Compton, arguably one of the most “dangerous places in America”, and revealed their experiences of institutionalized racism even as they were on the rise to fame. According to Universal Pictures, “their voice ignited a social revolution that is still reverberating today”.”
Racism and Stereotyping:
“In media and our culture, we often see, according to Stuart Hall in The Whites of Our Eyes, “naturalized representations of events and situations” in relation to race “wither factual or fictional, which have racist premises and propositions inscribed in them as a set of unquestioned assumptions.” What he means by this is that inferential racism is a lot like stereotyping. We have these naturalized images or representations of people, events, situations, in relation to their race and they may or may not be fact, but still have racism as a base, and are assumed or treated as fact.”
“In analyzing the movie Straight Outta Compton, we see firsthand how the members of N.W.A., Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, and MC Ren, experience this form of racism and stereotyping. There is a point in the movie where all of them are outside their recording studio and then police officers show up, thinking that the N.W.A. group are drug dealers or gang members because 1. They were black men, and 2. They “looked suspicious and dangerous”. This is a form of racial stereotyping. When told they actually work there at the recording studio, the police officers scoff and continue to yell at the men, telling them to put their hands up and lay down on the ground so they could be searched for drugs or weapons.”
“he police didn’t believe the members of N.W.A. because they were black and “looked like thugs” until a white person, their manager, was there to vouch for them. This form of oppression by the police, is a great example of how racism is institutionalized. The police force is a social institution, and when they exercise their right to power against a race in a negative way, it is a form of institutional racism…. These things are still happening today too”
Georgia Newman - Media Studies 