A history of black women images in mass communications to social media environments. The creation of Melanincholic builds from my masters degree in Digital Communication and a B. Biesecker’s essay, “No Time for Mourning: The Rhetorical Production of the Melancholic Citizen-Subject in the War on Terror. Biesecker examines the way mass media platform CNN played a “shock and awe campaign” in capitalizing on post 911 patriotism as a kind of melancholy to preserved American Democracy to accept the demise of the possibility of threat. The quote from then sitting President Bush to gain support for the war on terrorism, “Our nation – this generation…a dark threat of violence for our people and our future.” A repeated quote and that anchored the ‘white race’ into American law in 1962 ( ). The quote rings with familiarity in the “black menace” endangering white prosperity and domination that has white women using the police as assassins and confronting black women to brag about their superiority in beauty, salary, and life to two black women waiting for a tow.
In addressing the white woman citizen-subject, Melanincholic examines and defines the promotion of angst that fuels the melancholic mood of white women against black women when it comes to desire. It asks the question that makes plastic surgery a billion dollar industry, What is it about her that captures his attention?
It is my goal to do just as Richard did by building off her work with modern examples and different tone. I place the lives and experiences of Sarah Baartmen and Sandra Bland to speak historical of the discourse in beauty and shared brutalities of women of African descent in different times and locations under white male authority. My personal touch is the change of the primary audience to create a safe environment to inspire and honor the sacrifice of black women greatness in the skin they’re in.
