Panel Discusses Media Depictions of African Americans

The incarceration rate for white men in the United States was 678 inmates per 100,000 residents in 2010, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Meanwhile, the rate for African American males was 4,347 inmates per 100,000 residents. In other words, African American males were roughly six times as likely to be incarcerated as white males that year.

This is the real world, but what about the reel world? What influence do film and television have on the psyche of African American males and the way they are treated by police, the criminal justice system, and society at large? This Sunday, the Museum of the Moving Image will host a panel discussion featuring prominent African American cultural commentators who will look at the history of how African Americans are represented in film and its consequences. The panelists include: Jelani Cobb, author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut; Mia Mask, a film professor at Vassar College and co-editor of Poitier Revisited: Reconsidering a Black Icon in the Obama Age, Black American Cinema Reconsidered, and Divas on Screen: Black Women in American Film; and Greg Tate, a writer, musician, and producer who worked as a staff writer at The Village Voice and authored Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America and Everything but the Burden. Other participants will be announced as they are confirmed. More details after the jump.

Details: Endangered by the Moving Image: The Criminalization of Black and Brown Bodies, Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Avenue, Kaufman Arts District, Sunday, February 1st, 2 pm to 5 pm, $12/$9 for students and senior citizens/free for museum members. Purchase tickets in advance via www.movingimage.us/Endangered.

Photo: 2pac