Misconceptions and prejudices manufactured and disseminated through various channels such as the media included references to a “ brute” image of Black males.
Documented historical accounts have shown how myths, stereotypes, and racist ideologies led to discriminatory policies and court rulings that fueled racial violence in a post-Reconstruction era and has culminated in the exponential increase of Black male incarceration today. The synonymy of Blackness with criminality is not a new phenomenon in America.
