I think it was Edgar Allan Poe who said, “Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.” Sadly, we are entering an age where AI-generated videos are so good that they fool the majority of viewers. AI bots enter social media conversations and steer them in a hateful direction to drive engagement.
I’m not immune to this. I receive AI videos all the time, and some of them I even share before realizing they are fake.
I recently wrote a piece on what turned out to be little more than a Twitter debate about Ryan Coogler. However, the more I think about it, the more I think I was fooled by AI bot rage bait.
Calculating…Black man is successful. He is being honored tonight. Let’s take another marginalized group and clash them together.
Then you have people like me, no matter how innocent my intent might be, writing on an issue that shouldn’t even be an issue.
I don’t know if the Coogler conversation was actually driven by AI bots, but generating AI is now easier than ever. It requires no talent. You don’t even have to be able to spell especially well. Of course, hate sells, and there is a monetary incentive for most of these platforms.
Needless to say, racism flooded social media. Actual Black people no longer have any say in the narrative. We can no longer trust any of what we see. The age of digital Blackface is here.
The history of the narrative
The easiest way to gain consent for racism is to control the narrative. The system has understood this for decades. Control media consumption and control the people.
The goal is to build Black caricatures, walking stereotypes, that can be trotted out and used as a justification for racism. To do this, the system separates Blackness from the context in which it is created.
This is most obvious with minstrel shows. Minstrel shows were extremely popular in the 1800s and didn’t die out until deep into the twentieth century.
White people would usually paint their faces Black and put on shows in which they acted out Black stereotypes. They were building the narrative. This is what it means to be Black: goofy, lazy, and dumb, great for entertainment but barely human.
It didn’t matter if the narrative was real. It didn’t matter what the context was around these stereotypes. (There was this thing called chattel slavery going on when minstrel shows started.)
Although traditional minstrel shows disappeared, white hands didn’t stop guiding the Black narrative. One of the first films in America set the tone. The Birth of a Nation, in short, presented the Black man as a crazed, violent monster. White women needed to be protected, and it was up to the Ku Klux Klan to do so.
This movie reinvigorated the Klan and increased membership, evidence of how well the narrative worked. Black people are monsters. Racism is justified. We need the system to protect us. Jim Crow is justified. My hate is justified. Murder is justified.
By the time I was kicking around as a young LG in the ‘80s and ‘90s, television, movies, and music had inundated society with familiar Black stereotypes for a modern world.
Black men are thugs, rappers, or athletes. Black women are loud and overly sexual. If a story didn’t fit this narrative, it was usually pushed out of the mainstream’s eye.
Sensational headlines littered the news stations. Black people were often presented as inherently violent criminals, ignoring any other factors.
Strip the context and end up with the same Black putty to be shaped into familiar narratives. Decade after decade, the patterns look too familiar.
As a young man, I was guilty of falling for the narrative. I remember thinking there was just something “less bad” about whiteness. It is ridiculous to even consider once one has any level of actual knowledge, but the thought was there.
Sadly, we have many people who still believe the narrative, and now it is even easier to craft a tale. The narrative is out of control, and we are spiraling toward the bottom.
Digital Blackface
Digital Blackface is when you have non-Black people creating AI images, videos, or bots who present as Black. As usual, they lean into the Black stereotypes now established by a decades-long narrative. More than that, the AI is trained on the racist content found across the internet.
Sexualized AI avatars of Black women were recently removed from TikTok after a BBC investigation. There were 20 accounts with millions of views, but most of these AI accounts never face consequences.
I don’t really want to give these videos additional views, but I’ve seen them used to fit any racist narrative.
Black women wearing bonnets and fighting over food stamps.
Black men attacking ICE officers.
Black women being abusive to their children.
Black people gourging themselves on fried chicken.
Black men attacking little old white ladies.
Scroll to the comments of these videos, and someone is always pointing out that it is AI, but they are drowned out by all the other noise. Interestingly enough, there is always someone who wants to believe the video so badly that they will argue with the person calling out the AI.
Every video has white people saying something like “the usual suspects” or “offended by everything, ashamed of nothing.” These videos just reinforce their prejudice. In other words, the videos are doing their jobs and likely making people a ton of money in the process.
Black on Black crime
So, I need to touch on a sensitive topic here because I imagine AI bots helped stoke the flames of this conflict. When I wrote about the Ryan Coogler conflict, it was framed as Black people versus Black LGBTQ people.
After having some time to sit with the piece, I became especially aware of the type of people…and bots…who would want these two groups fighting.
It also reminded me of another Black-on-Black conflict circling my life lately: Foundational Black Americans (FBAs) or American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) and the rest of the Black diaspora.
I would be lying if I said tensions between these groups didn’t exist before the internet. As a child, I heard almost in the same breath that people in Africa hated us and loved us.
A lot of the tension comes from the same propaganda I mentioned earlier, but it, like everything else, was amplified by the internet.
I know some people who are very passionate about this topic, but I can’t see it as anything but a distraction. How are we not united? White supremacy is worldwide, and most of the arguments stem from centuries-old anti-Black myths.
If I’m being honest, it feels like two groups arguing over who is the superior form of Black. I imagine each side feels attacked in some way. Again, this feels silly when white people are laughing all the way to more power.
The system will then use these insecurities to justify punishing both groups. These ignorant Black Americans are dangerous and need to be attacked in their sleep. These foreigners are dangerous and eating the dogs and the cats.
Yeah, we just keep giving them more ammunition.
What now?
I’m currently reading The Digital Delusion by Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath. He explains how children born after 1997 are the first generation to be less cognitively developed than their parents. Of course, a dependence on technology is a large factor in this phenomenon. I would take it a step further, however. Most of our brains are just rotting away, and this is by design.
The short, meaningless clips, the flashy colors, and the anger are all thrown at us to keep us distracted. The desire to think critically, to even understand why something works the way it does, is all but gone.
My students don’t want to know why. They just want to know the answer to get the grade.
AI will give them “the answer” without any thinking involved. Once we stop working those muscles, it becomes easier to control. Think about the people who push AI the hardest.
I understand there are some positives to AI. It is a tool, and like with any tool, it is up to humanity on how we use it. Well, humanity’s batting average is pretty bad. We should throw this tool in the fire, or at the very least, place some major restraints on it before it is too late. Honestly, it may be too late.
Well, too late to do it easily. So many people I respect have folded to the inevitability of AI. I’ve fallen for the ragebait probably more times than I realize.
Generative AI has its fingers under our skin now, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be removed with hard work. Unfortunately, it is something we need to do together.
Let the people around you know the dangers of generative AI. Point out the fake videos they consume as reality. Let elected officials know that regulations on AI are a priority. Ask yourself why does this exist? Who is benefiting from it? If I’m not actively giving it money, what is it taking from me?
I still argue for boycotts. With the reach we have through social media, this should be simpler than ever. Unfortunately, it is difficult to truly get everyone to buy in. No, I’m not just talking about Black people. We need a national paradigm shift. We need a meticulous, targeted plan.
I’m a guy on the internet who sometimes posts his thoughts. In a lot of ways, I’m part of the problem. I plan to be more mindful, take a bit of action, and hopefully change some minds in the process.