Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority Review

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(More customer reviews)After reading Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority, I have but one regret; It has challenged my role as a passive observer. It's now hard to laugh at black comedians and rappers who carelessly use the N-word or endorse sexual promiscuity and violence. I can no longer dismiss the impact of black films or TV shows that exaggerate black pathologies and buffoonery. With disturbing clarity, the author draws connections between what's deemed "black entertainment" today and what was yesteryear's promotion of vile, demeaning, violent and debased black stereotypes. From "Relationship Wrecks" to "Neo-Coons" and every chapter in between, Burrell details a masterful 18th Century propaganda campaign that has effectively imbedded the notion of black inferiority and white superiority in society. With concentrated focus, the author shows how blacks, as well as whites, have been unconsciously conditioned to expect black inadequacies. Not satisfied with simply identifying this insidious campaign, the author, a former advertising executive, compassionately details a "New Media" strategy aimed at reclaiming black minds and communities. There have been many authors (Norman Coombs, E. Franklin Frazier, bell hooks) who have explored the psychological damage wrought by slavery and oppression. Burrell's approach from an advertising/marketing perspective, however, offers valuable perspective in an increasingly media-driven and dominated society.

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"Black people are not dark-skinned white people," says advertising visionary Tom Burrell. In fact, they are much more. They are survivors of the Middle Passage and centuries of humiliation and deprivation, who have excelled against the odds, constantly making a way out of "No way!" At this pivotal point in history, the idea of black inferiority should have had a "Going-Out-of-Business Sale." After all, Barack Obama has reached America's Promised Land.
Yet, as Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority testifies, too many in black America are still wandering in the wilderness. In this powerful examination of "the greatest propaganda campaign of all time"—the masterful marketing of black inferiority, aka the BI Complex—Burrell poses ten disturbing questions that will make black people look in the mirror and ask why, nearly 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, so many blacks still think and act like slaves. Burrell's acute awareness of the power of words and images to shift, shape, and change the collective consciousness has led him to connect the contemporary and historical dots that have brought us to this crossroads.
Brainwashed is not a reprimand—it is a call to action. It demands that we question our self-defeating attitudes and behaviors. Racism is not the issue; how we respond to media distortions and programmed self-hatred is the issue. It's time to reverse the BI campaign with a globally based initiative that harnesses the power of new media and the wisdom of intergenerational coalitions. Provocative and powerful, Brainwashed dares to expose the wounds so that we, at last, can heal.

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