Race in America is a touchy subject. We as a culture tend to “move on” to the next issue after we feel like we have adequately answered the one currently at hand. For example, the restitution for the Native Americans is an issue that is not covered thoroughly, if at all in current media. We find it not to be prevalent to our “current” issues. I like to think of this as the “horse blinder effect” or tunnel-vision. Race is no different in our society. Immediately when you hear the word race in our culture, images of MLK, slaves, and black rights come into mind. It’s a safe assumption that African Americans are the most thought about racial group when discussing the issue in America. The reality of the situation is completely the opposite. America is a melting pot of all different kinds of races, genders, sexes, and nationalities.
From class, we have learned that race can be considered a population of people believed to be naturally or biologically distinct from other groups. This often is derived from physical traits that are mostly visual, but there are also other cues such as one’s spoken language. This is also a socially prescribed label. Racism and prejudice are two issues in our culture that are very prevalent, but it is often hard for people to dissect the difference. Racism is an externalized aggression towards a race based upon their physical stature, while prejudice is a negative attitude you personally have that is internalized. A prejudice can lead into racism, but that is not always the case. Another way to determine prejudice is when viewing a person; the first thoughts that come into one’s head about a label or group that are negative are considered prejudice. Racial prejudice is one of the most talked about, but one could have prejudice towards any group or label another person prescribes to. If the viewer deems this other person’s affiliation with said groups or labels as inappropriate or “wrong”, then this is also a prejudice.
There is an extreme problem today with both issues stated above. The biggest issue is that the media our culture views look away from these social problems. A good example of how real racial ideology and prejudice is in our society can be shown in the movie Crash.
The media plays a huge role in how we view each and every race. The example from always sunny was a perfect depiction of the stereotypes that black men have in our society as being criminals. In my media and consumers class last semester we also had different pictures that depicted how media is shown. Often times television shows that have pictures of the whole cast leave the colored actors in the back. There was also a picture from the show cops of one man holding another handcuffed man’s arm. One was obviously a police officer, and the other a criminal. The handcuffed man was black. Hidden media messages are in our faces every day like this that give us grounds to build a prejudice that we don’t even know we’re building – it just becomes an assumption based off of what we view in media. Obviously everything we view from the media is the absolute truth, right?
The venue of sport is another monster all together. Take in the fact that it’s an institution that makes racial discrimination hard to detect, add some athletes that serve as our youth’s role-models, sprinkle in scandals, assumptions of greatness based on race, and the allure of sport being a means for vertical social mobility, or a means of achieving the American dream and “making it”, and you get yourself a whole mess of social, political, and ideological problems.
I personally believe that the stigma of black athletes as being superior is one of the many issues that need to be addressed in sport. To me, the fact that we idolize 18-20 year old boys that barely know how to take care of themselves is testament to the fact that the window into our own society that media shows us is biased and skewed. I heard somewhere once that the messages from media you’ll see the most are the ones with the most financial backing – but it’s your choice to decide whether to accept or reject the message. Stopping prejudice and racism starts with the media. Plain and simple.
I thought the Crash video that you posted on your blog really helped to sell your argument. I liked how while they were making a point about stereotypes they were also kind of making fun of the stereotypes by having Ludacris give a bad tip and then both of them having guns and robbing Sandra Bullock after they were just getting upset that she had gotten scared because they were black.
ReplyDeleteI think this video also kind of ties in to what I said in my post about racism being a bigger problem in different parts of the country. I'm sure the racial perceptions in LA are probably different than in Iowa City.
Agreed completely. Race is looked differently upon in Iowa City (even though it is one of the most liberal towns that I know of in Iowa) than it is in LA. I think demography has a huge role in how you view people of different races as well.
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