Media's Categorization Of White Men

Race in the media is a very sensitive issue now a days. When it comes to minorities we can still see that the media portrays us in a bad light. The image of blacks in the American media has changed over the past two decades with the civil rights movement, changes in attitudes towards minority groups, and increased sensitivity on the part of those who and project these images. An examination of the image of Blacks in the articles and advertisements to show attitudes subtly represented, and these attitudes can be linked to historical and social realities of the time.

We live in a media saturated environment where everything we know and what we consider to be important is often based on stories produced and displayed to us by the media, Brooks and Hebert (2006). Much of what we know and care about is based on the images, symbols and narratives in radio, television, film, music and other media systems. How individuals construct their social identities, how they come to understand what it means to be male, female, Black, White, Asian, Latino and Native America is shaped by commoditised texts produced by media for audiences that are increasingly segmented by the social construction of race. In short the media are central to what ultimately come to present our social realities. For example for many Whites and people from other races and ethnicities the media’s portrayal of young black men is the primary bias for their knowledge and reaction. With a few notable examples in politics, most media present young black men as figures to be admired for their athleticism, artistic, entertainment talent or feared for their criminality. However this essay will focus on the way young black men are portrayed in news.

Malcolm X, a civil rights activist, stated that “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have to power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent and that’s power. Because they control the minds of masses.” Unfortunately, some people lose their lives trying to get an “ideal body.” From the article “NYC Girls Project - Media and Girls,” this organization conducted a study in 2010 that stated that “63 percent of girls think the body image represented by the fashion industry is unrealistic and 47% think it’s unhealthy. Due to these reasons and others, the media influences individuals in a negative way because of how it reinforces racial/gender stereotypes.

The researcher began by asking the question what factors contribute to the stereotyping of black men as “dangerous and criminal”. And the researcher found out that although media influence stereotyping of this sort, it's only smaller part of the larger problem. There is a general tendency in the media to over-represent African-American as criminal; portray black men as particularly dangerous, and present information about black suspect that assume their guilt. However, even when crime featuring black and white criminal suspects is presented in equitable ways in the media, viewers’ existing stereotypes can result in biased interpretations that may serve to maintain racial stereotypes nevertheless. The researcher conclude that, viewers’ selective perception and interpretation of media content suggest that equitable media portrayals of race in crime-related programming may not be sufficient to address the concerns presented here.

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?

Media can be defined as an entity in which an individual, topic, or group can be seen or heard either through television, radio or the internet. Similarly, an individual does not have to be seen or heard to make their presence known, an individual can be viewed through their work as a producer or writer for a radio or television show. Society uses the media and its various platforms to gain access to events happening in their communities and all around the world. This type of vast communication helps to shape society's view on certain subjects, whether negative or positive depending on the picture that the media is portraying it in. An issue that has been and is still present within the media is the misrepresentation of a non-white demographic

The media has misrepresented African-American men by consistently headlining negative news, therefore causing unjust fear and treatment from society which has led to serious and sometimes fatal consequences, now African-American men must alter their public persona so that they aren’t viewed as a threat.

During the process of producing a television series, the demand for the producers to introduce their characters with only their highlighted traits make it impossible for viewers to gain a deep understanding of the community that the characters represent. One of the stereotypic traits that is usually seen on movies and television shows is societal difference that each race is placed into. Michael Omi in his article In Living Color: Race and American Culture stated that “in contemporary television and film, there is a tendency to present and equate racial minority groups and individuals with specific social problems” (546). There are many films and television shows found today that ground racial minorities into a specific social problems that are related to the color of their skin. It can be inferred from the current popular culture that this stereotype still persists.

Racism isn’t as violent as it was today some people will blindly say that it doesn’t exist anymore but the truth of the matter is that it does. A lot of people believe in racial stereotypes in an article written by Joe Fagin he talks about how Americans and the media have downgraded the Mexican race by mocking their language and calling them aliens it’s the same thing with African Americans popular Stereotypes of African Americans are that we are criminals and people who are only destined to end up in jail if they don’t make it in sports or entertainment. One of the most recent problems occurring today is racism in the media. Stereotyping in television and movies has reached a peak. The media gives children negative views of African American lifestyle. There are T.V. shows that depict African Americans in a way that is not true. There's even a video game about with an African American as the main character and the only thing that he does is kill, rob and have sex with people. The people who stereotype are mainly people who haven't been around African Americans and go by the only thing that they see about African Americans. So therefore, the media is a large part of the part of stereotyping of African Americans. Back When Troy Maxon and August Wilson were growing up Black men were characterized as brutes who were unintelligent and prone to committing crimes such as rape and murder. The representation of others as inferior serves as a purpose in justifying the negative

I found myself recognizing the conditioned ideologies that white media has continuously and successfully disseminated. I believed the illusions of success by accepting the exceptional exceptions in the black community that we are constantly reminded of. Developing the if she can do it so can I and the stop making excuses mindset, failing to recognize that the realities of the common black folk in America were less than par. They fed me their images and I ate them up without thought. After a certain age, I realized that white media had an agenda but it never dawned on me on how this centuries long campaign had really taken root and sprouted. Convincing our people to believe they were inferior and accepting inadequacy as fate was one of the greatest campaigns presented to the American people. Using black inferiority to justify slavery and to keep us at arm’s length even after the physical chains were broken. This movement is one worth noting being that 400 years later it is

“The sensitivity around stereotypes and distortions largely arises, then, form the powerlessness of historically marginalized groups to control their own representation.” Since Black people are the minority, they have no control over how they are represented in the media. As Shothat had mentioned in his article, “In the media there is a tendency to represent Black males as potential delinquents.” The misrepresentation of most Black males, affects them significantly; therefore, since they

“The power of mass media is primarily in agenda-setting – deciding what will be decided,” Dye tells us, “The media determine what the masses talk about and what the elite must decide about. Political issues do not just ‘happen.’ The media decide what are issues, problems, even crises, which must be acted upon.”(112) In her article titled The Unbearable Whiteness of Liberal Media, Arana Gabriel testifies to a similar point: that not only is media incredibly powerful, but it is also incredibly white and male. “Nearly 40 percent of the country is non-white and/or Hispanic, but the number of minorities at the outlets included in this article's tally—most of them self-identified as liberal or progressive—hovers around 10 percent.” The media is one particularly potent example of a powerful space, and one that is filled with white men, like so many other authoritative seats in the country. The highest paying and most influential positions in the United States – with the media as a prime example – are exclusive to women and minorities in ways that build upon and perpetuate already existing class struggles to

Morrison uses the examples of Shirley Temple, a popular, white child actress during the time period, and popular dolls in the 1940s to show the effect that mass culture had on young black women. It is ironic when Claudia states that unlike older, young black girls around her, her hatred for whiteness has not yet turned to love. As a naive child, Claudia, who doesn’t see the beauty that others see in popular children’s dolls, takes apart her doll to find its beauty, thinking that its beauty must be physically inside of it. She has yet to learn that, in the society she lives in, beauty is dictated by cultural norms, meaning that the doll itself is only beautiful because popular culture views whiteness as superior to everything else. Claudia’s

The representation of race has been fabricated through media can be seen throughout history that has come to encourage the idea of white supremacy and justification of inequality. This representation of race is used to make others as inferior used as an objective in defending the negative treatment of blacks and protection whiteness as the ideal.

Based on this article, the point of view is valid and "good". The point of view is that biases are natural and we have to know that we all have them no matter who we are. In my opinion, I do agree with the point of view, given the information conveyed in the article. The reason being is that we often at times sadly depict the black male as dangerous other the white male. I guess it's the way television or movies has portrayed black males. That has tremendously impacted our perceptions. For example, say you're in a bus and there is you and a black man. Also, you're a white man. The older women comes into the bus and decides to sit next to you other than the black man because she saw the black man reach for something in his pocket. So, she had gotten scared and used her implict bias to think the black man would be more dangerous than the white men. However, he just got his phone. That's why she decided to sit somewhere else. This example further supports the idea that implicit bias is all around us.