I never said that white people are justified portraying black people negatively...I am merely suggesting that the true harm comes from within. You really think that the above swimming rules poster has a more negative impact on stereotypes, than people like Mr. Cent?
The true harm comes from within? No, this is not a scenario in which, "You did this to yourself," applies. White people were believing black folk were stupid and violent loooooooooooong before 50 Cent came around. White people were
still believing black folk were stupid and violent when Italians and Irishmen were the country's gangsters and the likes of Ella Fitzgerald or Sammy Davis Jr. graced the airwaves and stages.
But, decades later, exactly nothing black people can do convinces whites that they're not stupid, violent boogeymen. A relative handful of black folks thought, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," and started taking advantage of the long-established stereotype to sell records, and this is somehow their fault?
True enough, 50 Cent isn't helping. But for as long as we're still contributing to it, we can't bitch about them finally buying into it and perpetuating it. And for as long as we're still contributing to it, they have no real motivation to stop, do they?
Beyond that, no, this one little swimming poster has not done more damage to the black image than 50 Cent. But the
type of negative stereotype reinforcement featured in the poster absolutely has, cumulatively. The fact that it's unintentional makes it insidious. I mean, they managed to portray minorities negatively without even meaning to. And a bunch of white people looked at it and saw nothing wrong with it. That's the part that speaks to the collective white mindset.
When racial representation is as substantially imbalanced as it is in America, it takes consciousness and a modicum of effort for the majority to be equitable to minorities. It's our duty as decent people. This poster may be a most trivial failure, but it's still a failure.