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Aaron Jeffers

Kati Lewis

English 2610

March 1, 2020

Challenging The Grand Narrative: Systemic Categorization

What is the grand narrative of American society? I do not have the answer to this

question. My intent is to provide a collection of narratives and then let you, the reader, decide.

Though I do not know what the grand narrative is, I do think that knowing only one is dangerous.

That being said, I’ll be using two cultural texts to aid me in my exploration of alternate

narratives: Fruitvale Station – a film by Ryan Coogler – and The Story Of OJ – a song by Jay Z.

Fruitvale Station challenges the grand narrative surrounding the fatal police shooting of Oscar

Grant III on New Year’s Day 2009. The Story Of OJ challenges the grand narrative surrounding

what it means to be black in America to black Americans. My alternate narratives are the

following: the curse of inevitability; process of defamiliarization; thrill of virtue void of action;

truth isn’t enough; humanization; need for categorization; defined by blackness; systemic racial

advertising; fear of the alternative narrative.

The curse of inevitability comes from the artistic choice Ryan Coogler made to put actual

footage of the shooting at the beginning of his film. By doing this, he puts the inevitable in the

minds of his audience and challenges them to forget it through telling a story. This curse is

evident in black culture, manifesting itself in the form of the limited roles blacks envision

themselves having the ability to fill: incarceration, drug dealer, gang member, death by police,

athlete, or rapper. White hegemonic control of cultural texts is partially responsible for this self-

imposed curse of inevitability upon young black Americans. The images young black children
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see of black adults are typically images of them fulfilling on these roles. Images of black adults

as doctors, lawyers, teachers, or scientists are rare in popular culture whereas images of white

adults as doctors, lawyers, teachers or scientists are commonplace. Ms. Pat, a comedian, speaks a

great deal about how normal selling crack to support her children at 16 seemed to her because it

was what everyone she knew was doing. The idea of being able to make money doing anything

else never occurred to her until she began dating someone outside of her community. My point is

although media has historically been largely negative in its portrayal of black Americans, it is not

solely responsible for the systemic culture of : having children before the age of 18; children

growing up without a father with a mother who sells drugs; children growing up surrounded by

limited roles to fulfill as an adult; children having children and beginning the cycle anew.

The process of defamiliarization is a tool the media uses when telling stories of young

black men being killed by police. It is rare for black men to be shown in domestic environments.

Often they are shown in the streets or in jail. Why do people look at people like Trayvon Martin

and Oscar Grant III and just define them their mistakes? Yes, he was a thug, He was in

possession of marijuana. He was arrested previously. According to media, black Americans are

nothing more than products of their environments and the culmination of their choices. Ryan

Coogler attempts to tell a human story in his film. Oscar Grant III was indeed imperfect. Yes he

had been in prison. Yes he got his girlfriend pregnant. Yes he sold drugs. But he was 22. He

struggled with being on time. He wanted to do the right thing but just wasn’t always sure how.

Were you perfect at 22? Ryan Coogler challenges this narrative that murder by police is justified

when the individual is imperfect.

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"It’s as if, upon seeing the film and being sad for Oscar Grant, you have fulfilled your

social contract, and can leave the theater feeling as if, in experiencing the right emotions, you’ve

played your part in the fight against our unequal society," (Conklin, Philip, 2014). The thrill of

virtue void of action is something media shows quite often: celebrities who will post about

seeing a film as if they are the next Martin Luther King Jr. and then follow that post up with a

post displaying their success. Society seems to think that simply engaging with cultural texts that

challenge hegemony is enough. Artists are simply a catalyst. The audience has to act or nothing

will ever change. Yet society continuously rewards people with social clout if they reference an

“important” work of art as if they are a better person for doing so regardless of how much or

little they engage with the community of which this “important” work is about.

“Would a more honest film force us to confront our beliefs about race and inequality,

make us ask why something like this happens, rather than just reassure us that it’s terrible that it

happened?” (Conklin, Philip, 2014). “Should a film about politically charged events that

happened only four years ago simply fabricate incidents for dramatic effect?” (Smith, Kyle,

2013). Truth, according to James Baldwin, “is meant to imply a devotion to the human being, his

freedom and fulfillment; freedom which cannot be legislated, fulfillment which cannot be

chartered,” (Baldwin, James, 1949). Truth, unfortunately, simply isn’t good enough when

challenging a centuries old hegemonic narrative that has been so deeply ingrained within our

society it doesn’t need to be talked about, it just exists. If Fruitvale Station had been 100%

accurate in its depiction of Oscar Grant’s last day, then it would be just another story of black

man who got shot by police. Good or bad it needed some dramatic flair and artistic choices to

make us want to change the outcome of Oscar’s tragic story. As we saw with Trayvon Martin,
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his story was told truthfully and yet society still labeled him as a thug, a deviant member of

society who wouldn’t have amounted to anything.

Ryan Coogler said in an interview with Eugene Hernandez of the Film Society of the

Lincoln Center that his intention was to tell a human story, not a black story. By telling human

stories rather than black stories, society can begin to relate to the struggles of being black in

America without having to be black in America. Fruitvale Station, as pointed out by the

YouTube channel Locker Punch, is mostly a slow paced depiction of a rather ordinary day. Most

films that take place over the span of 24 hours and focus on a single protagonist are about rather

spectacular day. Die Hard, for example, is about John McClane trying to save people from

terrorists. Fruitvale Station, however, shows Oscar Grant making his bed, taking his daughter to

school, picking his girlfriend up from work, and then going out with his friends. Nothing

extraordinary happens on this day and yet it was his last day. It is in this mundane series of

events that the film humanizes Oscar. Very few if any of us can relate to a day like the one John

McClane had in Die Hard. All of us, however, can relate to the ordinary series of events that

Oscar Grant experiences.

“Society is held together by our need for categorization. It is the function of society to

protect us; but it is only this void, our unknown selves, demanding, forever, a new act of

creation, which can save us,” (Baldwin, James, 1949). Society seems plagued with this incessant

need to categorize and be categorized. Society has trapped itself in this cycle of forcing cultures

to exist only within the realm of the category to which they belong. As a consequence, category

is the only thing that’s real. Categories make us feel safe. Categories also strip us of true

freedom. From childhood, we are categorized: height, weight, eye color, skin color, hair color,

gender, clothes, shoes, glasses, athletic, artistic, musical, academic, etc. Highschool is the most
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exaggerated form of categorization. Every student is defined by his or her “clique”. Each student

is socially expected to only interact with students of the clique to which they belong. Inter-clique

relations aren’t discouraged but are rare nonetheless and when they happen they are the “hot-

topic” of gossip. Similarly, in society we do the same thing, just with a hint of racism. White

men are expected to fulfill their gender role of power, strength, and wealth. White women are

expected to uphold beauty standards, possess the skills of domesticity, and subscribe to a set of

religious beliefs. Black men are expected to have tattoos, be dangerous, have “bitches”, and

know the rules of street life. Black women are expected to be “big, black, and beautiful”, have

their hair in a weave, and have a strong sense of independence. Obviously I’m stereotyping here

but that’s my point: these are all legitimate ways of categorizing one another. Yes it’s racist,

sexist, etc. but it’s how we as a society function.

“I’m not black, I’m OJ!...OK!” (Jay Z, 2017). Successful black Americans don’t allow

themselves to redefine what it means to be black. Instead, they try to escape their category and

transcend in to something else, but, their culture won’t let them. Rather, their culture will use

their own identity against them. “We tend to, as black people—‘cause we never had anything,

which is understandable—we get to a place and we just think we separate ourselves from the

culture. You know, like where O.J. will get to space where he’s like, “I’m not black, I’m O.J.” …

It’s gonna take for the way-showers to do it and then not get to that point and then turn into like,

“I ain’t black, I’m O.J. Like Tiger Woods will get to a space and think, “I’m above the culture,”

you know, and that same person, when he’s playing golf and playing great, you’re protected, and

when you’re not, they’re gonna picture you drunk driving and, like, embarrass you, and the

world will eat you up and spit you out,” (Jay Z, 2017). Maya Showell and Morgan Thornton

gave a really powerful TedTalk in 2017 about not being black enough. This idea of blackness is a
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systemic categorization created by black people. Maya was called an “oreo” by her peers as a

kid. Oreo was the only way her peers could understand Maya’s inter-categorical interests.

Morgan’s use of big words made her sound like a white girl to her peers. Morgan liked white girl

music. Both Maya and Morgan, as a result of not neatly fitting into a category, began to struggle

with their identity.

Since the birth of lithography, blacks have been given this identity by the hegemony of

media as projections of a “lesser” being mirrored by the “superior” white alongside them.

Marilyn Maness Mehaffy, a 20th century scholar, discusses in her piece entitled “Advertising

Race/Raceing Advertising: The Feminine Consumer(-Nation), 1876-1900” this concept of

“commodification of otherness.” Coined by Bell Hook in 1992, the term refers to the affect of

depicting a race of people negatively alongside a positive depiction of another race in order to

sell a product. Black function in 19th century advertising was twofold: first the “female black

laborer served as the regressive foil for both the (white) consumer and late-century civic ideals of

U.S. technological innovation, progress, and enlightened civilization; second the black child

provided the visual linking of dark, usually black, skin color with dirt and "dirtiness."” (Mehaffy,

Marilyn M. 1997). The black laborer served as both producer and raw material of industrial

commodities, as both authority on cleaning and cleanliness and, in other depictions, "dirty".

Mehaffy stated that “Once the narrative of class difference is imposed on and through the

racialized African American female body, she (and her overt entanglement with the Euro-Anglo

American female body) is no longer necessary for the compositional blueprinting of "taste,"

"modernity," or autonomous bourgeois subjectivity.” In other words, it became culturally

embedded in society that black females were servants of high class white females. Similarly, to

tie it back to modern media, black Americans have been portrayed in media a certain way for so
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long that it is now culturally embedded in society that black Americans are a certain way.

Furthermore, this cultural view is so deeply embedded that it no longer needs to be reinforced in

day to day cultural texts.

“It’s safer to believe that he’s guilty,” (Morrison, Toni, 1997). That is what Toni

Morrison said about OJ Simpson during an interview with Charlie Rose. She then catalyzed this

discussion about alternate narratives and the danger they pose to hegemony. OJ Simpson is a

cultural projection of societies obsession with the single narrative. It’s much easier to have only

one narrative, pick a side, and feel virtuous about supporting such side as opposed to having to

look at an issue through the lens of multiple narratives. Armond White stated that it “should be

unprecedented for news media to portray an opinion of a verdict.” Yet with OJ Simpson, with

Oscar Grant III, and with many others the news media gave their opinions of the events without

questions from anyone. Andrew Ross expressed his hope that "People wake up out of this media

induced dream to find out that they were in a society that was much less humane than it was a

couple years ago because it was during this period of time that our elected officials were busy

trashing and dismantling the welfare state." He argues that democracy needs adversarial

scenarios. “Trials are merely a medium for launching a discussion about the themes of American

society. People find the appeal of an adversarial system in the courts. People in a strong

democracy of opinion look for adversarial scenarios.” Alternative narratives are arguably an

essential part of democracy and yet we constantly find ourselves debating a single narrative

because the media hegemony is making money off of it. Alternative narratives are lethal to

hegemony and necessary for democracy.

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To conclude, challenging the grand narrative requires the use of alternative narratives

developed from objective analysis of cultural texts. Categorization is as much a part of humanity

as racism is a part of hegemony. They are both commodities of otherness. The former

metaphorically profits from the bonding of groups based solely on categorical norms. The latter

profits literally from the division of groups based solely on physical appearance. Adversarial

scenarios are critical to a strong democracy, however, we must find a way to bring multiple

narratives to the table rather than continue to allow categorical fear to dictate our acceptance of a

single hegemonic narrative.

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Works Cited

Baldwin, James. “Everybody's Protest Novel.” Notes Of A Native Son, 1949.

Brand, Xue. “Analysis of Jay Z's Story Of OJ.” YouTube, UMG, 3 May 2018,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI4qQv8JXUE&t=355s.

Conklin, Philip. “The Struggle of Representation: Fruitvale Station.” The Periphery, Independent,

Apr. 2014, www.theperipherymag.com/fruitvale-station/.

Coogler, Ryan, director. Fruitvale Station. The Weinstein Company, 26 July 2013.

Gershon, Livia. “The Racism of 19th-Century Advertisements.” JSTOR Daily, ITHAKA, 28 Jan.

2019, daily.jstor.org/the-racism-of-19th-century-advertisements/.

Hernandez, Eugene. “Summer Talks: Ryan Coogler, ‘Fruitvale Station.’” YouTube, Lincoln

Center, 14 July 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKBvsM3mmpI&t=1s.Mehaffy,

Marilyn, Maness. “Advertising Race/Raceing Advertising: The Feminine Consumer(-Nation),

1876-1900.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 23, no. 1, 1997, pp.

131–174., doi:10.1086/495238.

Punch, Locker. “Fruitvale Station: The Curse Of Inevitability.” YouTube, 13 Mar. 2018,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m7hTQ0FipE.

Rose, Charlie. “Toni Morrison Interview On OJ Simpson.” YouTube, PBS, 1997,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFFymMlbDLw.

Showell, Maya, and Morgan Thornton. “The Black Girls Who Are Not Black Enough.” YouTube,

TedxTalks, 3 May 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=owR_4k1Hfzc.

Smith, Kyle. “'Fruitvale Station' Is Loose With The Facts About Oscar Grant.” Forbes, Forbes

Magazine, 5 Feb. 2014, www.forbes.com/sites/kylesmith/2013/07/25/fruitvale-station-is-

loose-with-the-facts-in-an-effort-to-elicit-sympathy-for-oscar-grant/#d785649693c2.
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“The Story Of OJ.” The Story Of OJ, Jay Z, 30 June 2017.Z, Jay. “JAY-Z – The Story of

O.J.” Genius, 30 June 2017, genius.com/Jay-z-the-story-of-oj-lyrics.