Birth of Nation

June 16, 2015

Edyta Lachowicz

What does popular culture tell us about racial stereotypes?

“Birth of a Nation,” a film directed by D.W. Griffith, was watched at the White House by President Woodrow Wilson. It was also shown at gala screenings, with expensive tickets. The film shows a deformed view of the South after the Civil War. The Ku Klux Klan is shown as a positive and noble force for their actions, and blacks were criticized harshly. Blacks were shown as dominating Southern whites, a danger to white women, whom they wanted to possess sexually. Overall, the portrait of Reconstruction was utterly distorted and falsified. Not only were the facts falsified, but they were a complete opposite to what the movie was showing. In reality, white Americans were the ones dominating the blacks, and they frequently sexually assaulted black women. In fact, the Ku Klux Klan was a terrorist organization responsible for hundreds of murders. As a result, “Birth of a Nation” was the subject of protest by many civil rights organizations, as it proved to have lingering effects. As a propaganda movie, it inspired violence against African-Americans in many cities.

The biggest issue of the movie was race purity. Slavery maintained the social hierarchy, but mixing races and having “mulattos” was highly disruptive. The idea of blacks being allowed to have rights to intermarriage was largely unheard of to white Americans. Poignantly, the film depicts a trial held by the Ku Klux Klan of a black man who was interested in a white woman and made sexual advances towards her. The woman was terrified of him, and it lead to a horrifying accident where the woman died. The trial ended with the Klan killing the black man and delivering his body to the “mulatto.” The mulatto, who was the governor, was also shown as a predator to white women, wanting to marry a white woman who did not want him. The scene where the lifeless body of the black man is delivered was horrifying and outrageous....