Minorities in the Media

Here’s a little something I wrote for the school paper that got publish. pretty good stuff. Check it out.

Minorities in the Media
The media is a huge contributor to our culture. It tells us what to think about things like politics, health issues, foreign affairs and entertainment. The media has managed to have a mix of positive and negative effects in this country and its people.
According to an executive summary put together by the Building Blocks for Youth website in April 2001, 76% of the public say they form their opinions about crime from what they see or read in the news.
It also points out that six out of seven studies that clearly identify the race of victims found more attention was paid to white victims than to black victims but that in nine of twelve studies minorities were overrepresented as perpetrators of a crime.
Although journalism and news has a profound effect on how we view minorities, film and TV seems to have an even bigger effect.
Although Hollywood has come a long way since its rise there seems to still be a lack of non-stereotypical roles for minorities in in the film and television industry.
According to Carlos Cortes’s article, “A Long way to go: Minorities and the Media”, in six decades of the Academy Awards only three African Americans, two Asians, one Puerto Rican and one Chicano have won Oscars for acting.
Often in movies and television Native Americans are depicted as lazy, unemployed and alcoholics.
Since 9/11 people who appear to be from the Middle East are usually seen as terrorist and Hispanic and African Americans men are usually portrayed as misguided, usually brought up in a broken home in a poor neighborhood somewhere.
The women are usually shown as loud, bossy and obnoxious. This image can be compared to that of the “mammy.” One really clear example of this is Martin Lawrence’s Big Mama’s House. Martin plays the character of Big Mama. She’s loud, doesn’t take any crap, is seen doing all the things a maid or housewife would do, (like cooking meals for the entire family and cleaning), and she is seen as the matriarch of the family. Other examples of the mammy image can be seen at breakfast, when you pick up your box of Aunt Jemima pancake mix or bottle Mrs. Butterworth’s pancake syrup.
A major industry of media that has a huge influence on the representation of minorities is music.Over many years we have gone from lyrics like,
“you grow in the ghetto, living second rate, and your eyes will sing a song of deep hate. The place that you play and where you stay looks like one big alleyway. You’ll admire all the number book takers. Thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money makers. Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens, and you wanna grow up to be just like them. Smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers, pickpockets, peddlers, even panhandlers. You say, I’m cool. I’m no fool, but then you wind up dropping out of high school.” ( lyrics from “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the furious five 1982)
To songs nowadays that revolve around drugs, parties, women, sex, money and cars.
Although there are a few artists that talk about more than material things, it seems that over time hip-hop has lost its message.
At one time hip hop was an art form that under privileged youths in inner cities used to speak out against powers that held them down. The creation of this art form even gave women a way to speak out as well. Take Queen Latifah’s 1989 record “The Evil That Men Do.”
“A woman strives for a better life, but who the hell cares because she’s living on welfare. The government can’t come up with a decent housing plan so she’s in no man’s land, Someone’s living the good life tax free cause some poor girl can’t find a way to be crack-free. And that’s the message I thought I had to send to you about the evil that men do.
These lyrics make the majority of today’s lyrics look like a modern day minstrel show. Instead of black face paint and white gloves were getting grills and “bling-bling.” Its all just show. Corporate gangsters putting on a show produced by corporate America because that is the image they want you to see. That is the image they want our young men and women to look up to and admire. Not the image of strong, self-dependent, educated men and women who have the brains and courage to make the changes no one else will.
The media has a very big effect on how we think, how we see things and how we feel about them.
It is an ongoing cycle that even until this point has not stopped.
And the only way to break this cycle is to prove them wrong, to break free of stereotypes, to do all the things they say you can’t do, and be all the things they say you can’t be.
Surprise the world.