SamUrozaBlackArts

Sweet Flypaper is a collaboration between Langston Hughes and Roy DeCarava. The collaboration between them in this novel helped give more insight into Harlem's black community while also being easily readable for white viewers and equally appreciated by black people as well.  However, it's also this collaboration that can face some challenges as the white community may not see any interest or reason as to why they must document and publish the black community's way of living and culture in their archives. Even with how real these photos may be in correctly representing the black community's culture, they may still face some hurtful stereotypes and pushback in ever being properly represented in society.

Cultural Production in the media in 2022 is nowadays more expansive and more diverse in the communities the media decides to represent. But this exact issue of what the media can choose what communities to represent and what about that community they can represent can lead to several issues. It can give the public a false view of what that community actually is, leading them to create hurtful stereotypes of them or to mis-accurately represent their culture.  Just like in Thomas Allen Harris' film, "Goes Through Darkly Lens", he discusses how the media representing the African American community in America's history of archives represent hurtful stereotypes of his community. If it isn't a black person behind those camera lens taking these images, then that is what leads to these hurtful stereotypes and for them to be discriminated against in a majorly white society. Representation matters and it is what shapes people's images of the black community.