Black Women’s Identity in American Media and Culture

Angelique “AJ” Gordon ETHN 3400 Essay Assignment 1 Anti – Black Stereotypes in Modern Media Stereotypes are defined as an oversimplified image or idea about a specific type of person. It is believed that stereotypes about African Americans began in the United States around the 18th century. Anti-Black stereotypes arguably the most developed racist stereotypes in racial framing and have been used as foundations for the capture, enslavement, and later, the subjugation of African American people. Stating that stereotypes are just a joke is an understatement of the consequential after – math racial images and stereotypes have on the African American population. Even stereotypes that are considered positive are often concealed with negative implications and reasons as to why they exist. Most people may think they only hold stereotypes in the back of their head, but studies show that people are more likely to fall back on them in making judgments when they feel challenged, face uncertainty, or experience sensory overload. Using information from class, comparisons from the films we have watched and Ed Guerrero’s Framing Blackness, this paper will analyze the stereotypes in the television show Empire.

Jakaya McCambry 10/02/12 African American Stereotypes in the Media When I first heard someone say, “All African American people are Ghetto,” I was very offended that someone would make this type of assumption about my culture, and I thought how ignorant this person must be; but then I stopped and wondered why other people would think this about us. I asked her why she would say something like this, and she instantly listed shows like Tosh.O and Chelsea Lately, which highlight my culture in a negative view. It was clear to me that she had made up her mind about black people through watching the media and seeing African Americans fulfill that stereotype in person. This led me to question: Where exactly do these stereotypes come from?

“Oh my gosh! you’re so pretty for a black girl.” “You’re black so I know you can twerk.” In society these phrases may be considered as compliments for black women even though they are not. However, people only know what the media portrays black women to be. It emphasizes them as ghetto, loud, angry, and ignorant. Black women are more than the negative stigma that the media portrays. In our society, the media reinforces the plague of African American women by stereotypes and falsities originating from slavery. For young African American women, the majority of media portrayal, especially in music and film, is of a bulumpcious, sexually hyperactive golddigger. This negative image of a black women is damaging to the black community by implying

In today’s society, there are intricate and subtle racial patterns in the mass media that show how powerful images play a significant role in shaping the attitudes of Whites toward Blacks. White Americans, they show, learn about African Americans not through personal relationships, but through the images shown by the media. . In short, they conclude that although there are more images of African-Americans on television now than ever, these images are often harmful to the prospect of unity between the races. With the advancement of technology such as advertisement, there has always been a stereotypical view of how women are portrayed in the media. For hundreds of years, women have been viewed as sexual objects in the eyesight of many

The Portrayal of African-American Women in Media The stereotypical misrepresentations of African-American women and men in popular culture have influenced societal views of Blacks for centuries. The typical stereotypes about Black women range from the smiling, a sexual and often obese Mammy to the promiscuous Jezebel who lures men with her sexual charms. However, the loud, smart mouthed, neck-rolling Black welfare mother is the popular image on reality television. These images portrayed in media and popular culture create powerful ideology about race and gender, which affects daily experiences of Black women in America. With few healthy relationships portrayed in the media, Black women are left to make decisions based on the options

Abstract: Title: Influence of the Media and Negative Affect on Black Women From the beginning of cinema, the media has shown black women as nothing more than objects, dehumanizing them all together. This representation has held a long-lasting impact on both young and old African American women everywhere. The theme of

Can you imagine living in a world in which your beauty is not seen as beauty at all? Many black women wake up to this reality every morning. Living the life of an African American female is difficult because you do not fit into the Eurocentric paradigm in which you are forced to be reminded of daily. Media shows us as a people who we are and how we are supposed to be. Media affects black women in a negative way because it portrays black women in a negative way.

Have you ever noticed the recurring stereotypes of black women that is portrayed on reality television? Everyday you can look on television and tune into any network and see the madness that goes on. Whether it be Love and Hip Hop, Bad Girls Club, or The Real Housewives of Atlanta, you  can see the exaggerated confrontations and animated expressions given off by these women. Media stereotypes of the angry black women have become more persuasive in recent years than ever before. If we as a whole stop these television networks from promoting dangerous stigmas on black women, we can increase the amount of positive representation of women of color drastically in television, advertising, and social media.

Samuels (2011) analyzes different television shows in an attempt to draw the conclusion of the portrayal and demeanor of African American women on television. Using current African American dominated shows that attract viewers such as “Love and Hip Hop”, “Real House Wives” and “The Bad Girls Club”, Samuels came to the conclusion that these shows use black women to justify the stereotype of the “angry black woman”. Although Donald Trump’s show “Celebrity Apprentice” is not an African American dominated show, Samuels uses it as an introductory and perfect example that black women are used on television as a whole to exemplify this stereotype when Star Jones and NeNe Leakes are shown arguing. Samuels analyzes simple things such as facial expression, movement and gestures on a variety of television shows that feature African American women using it as proof that it defines them as the angry black woman because Caucasian women do the complete opposite when being analyzed through the shows. When taking a look at VH1’s “Basketball Wives” and “Love and Hip Hop”, Samuels noticed that each show had a pattern and contained a confrontation between the women or the threat to do bodily harm to another person.

To begin discussing stereotypes of African American women, one must understand that the stereotypes white women in America face are much different. While, the stereotypes of women as a whole have been negative and perverse, the majority of these views have been reversed since the beginning of the 20th century. Societal norms of white women have transformed from the days of June Clever to a post-feminist era with equality on the rise. However, this revolution of norms has not occurred at the same rate for African American women. Analyzing the stereotypes of Jezabel, Mammy, and Sapphire the transparent myths of black women persist today.

In many ways, black women are often stereotyped and misrepresented especially in media. The way black women are often perceived or categorized has been nonetheless consistent. However, their misrepresentation is often the opposite of what black women are or how black women live their life daily. At the same time the media has driven the imagery of black women to the point where everyone assumes that’s their true nature. In the article “Why Can’t Ads Get Black Women Right” by Saaret E. Yoseph she explains how black women are misrepresented in TV commercials (a form of the media).

In society today African American men are portrayed as musicians (rappers), athletes (basketball or football), criminals, uneducated, unemployed, lazy and are seen as very religious. African American women are seen as having daddy issues, being angry at all times,

The fourth book I found about African American culture and identity is called Mr. Williams (Barbour, 2005). This book was a story about Mr. Williams and all of the stories from his childhood. Throughout the story, he described his living standards, work life, education life, and relationships he had with whites. As mentioned in the beginning of the story, Mr. Williams was born February 28, 1929 in Arcadia, Louisiana. This time frame was given to inform the reader that it was during slavery and the same year Martin Luther King Jr. was born. It helps the audience gain perspective on historical events that occurs, specifically before the Civil Rights Movement. There was never a timeline of events with specific conflicts and a solution in this

In Patricia Hill Collins’ “Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images,” she illustrates four main stereotypes that Black women face. The first controlling image applied to African American women is “The Mammy.” The mammy is the faithful, obedient servant to the white family and the stereotype attempts to hide the fact that black women who work for white families are being exploited. By loving and caring for her white “children” more than her own, the mammy symbolizes the dominant group’s perceptions of the ideal black female relationship to elite white male power. The smiling mammy signals her agreement with the situation, seemingly accepting her subordination (Collins, 71). Next is the image of the Black matriarch (Collins, 73). According to the stereotype, they spend too much time away from home, are overly aggressive and unfeminine, and allegedly emasculate their lovers and husbands. This stereotype attempts to control conduct by punishing black women for assertiveness and hides the oppression by making it seem that black women are naturally this way (Collins, 74-75).

European oppressions and expectations have been a major challenge for black women and black culture. The European standards of beauty are perceived as the norm in society and have shaped the way black women view their selves. The purpose of this paper is to explore how aspects of the self and racism have impacted black women’s lives. From the colour of skin, body shape and hair, black women have to construct themselves to feel beautiful or be accepted in society, which is something I’ve struggled with myself. This paper argues that race and the self are two components that influence the perceptions of black hair. Black woman and girls continue to face many challenges and barriers that they have to overcome, and standards they have to conform