Confronting Injustice and Power Inequities: How Popular Culture and Political Rhetoric Soothe the Masses.

The legacy of the United States is replete with racial injustices. Committed for and in the name of democracy these inequities are defined by sociological research, judicial interpretation and/or Presidential rhetoric. While these 'state sanctioned' attempts to salve the masses are unacceptable or mostly ignored, popular culture attempts to explain and illuminate injustices are often widely accepted and coopted for further use. This paper examines the synthesis between Presidential rhetoric, judicial interpretation and popular culture as manifested in cinema and literature. Dystopian and utopian treatises which illuminate inequities while entertaining us. Specifically it examines how this synthesis has acted in response to specific acts of containment of 'the other' in the name of democracy: Indians, Japanese and Blacks. The popular culture icons that will be examined include Martin Luther King's dystopian 'I Have A Dream Speech', the Western genre and film noir. How the fear of 'the other' manifest itself in popular culture and how this rhetoric finds itself in the dialogue of Presidential promises and judicial interpretations of civil rights and civil liberties cases. While Presidents and justices need to walk a fine line their rhetoric often finds its foundation in popular culture references which find no need for this tenuous demarcation. Rhetoric, quick sound bites are useful for rallying the masses but too often the genesis of the rhetoric goes ignored. The underlying belief in a dystopian society is subverted to the rallying cry for democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]