The Media? I’m So Over It..
The
media is guilty of many things, from informing us about what goes on in our
world to providing us with a seven day forecast. The media is everywhere and
reaches an extremely large audience. Now, you would think that something that
reaches people city and countrywide would be fair in what they put on the air,
right? Show no sort of bias, correct? Well, I cannot say that for media here in
America, particularly when it comes to race related issues. In my opinion race
and the media is not a very good mixture. Well, it depends on the race, to be
quite honest. I am an African American female and I feel as though, every time
I turn my television on a news channel for example, I am seeing nothing, but
violence, criminal behavior or some sort of negativity aimed toward my people.
Now, I like to think that news stations do not purposefully air only the
negative aspects of African Americans, but it is quite difficult to have that
sort of mindset when negativity is all that you see. The media talks negatively about other races
“I’m sure”, but my focus will be on the presentation of African Americans in
today’s media.
It seems as if showcasing anything positive about African Americans in
the media is a rarity. If it isn’t about an athlete setting a record in
whatever sport or an actor or actress winning an award, there’s nothing. Now I won’t
go on a rant about how African Americans are these huge victims, but the issue
of African Americans being misrepresented in the media needs to be addressed. Everything
from negative stereotypes to only highlighting violence and unconstructiveness.
I actually stopped watching the news for a while because of the degradation I was
seeing on a daily basis. These were people that look just like me. It is
heartbreaking to watch at times, especially when it comes to reality
television.
All I see on networks such as Oxygen and VH1 are young women acting a
fool. I cannot blame the media for this solely. The people that participate in
these shows know exactly what they are doing, it is just the editing that comes
into play in the way they portray these young woman and it is all just a circus
to be flat out. They are either depicted
as gold diggers or overly promiscuous. An
article I read on the internet entitled Black Women in Media: Gold Diggers, Jezebels and Baby Mamas? There was a statement that said “In the media negative
imagery of Black women is seen often twice as frequently as positive imagery.” This
truly did upset me; however it did not surprise me. African American women are often
portrayed negatively in the media and it has been going on for quite some time
now. Unfortunately I see no chance of it slowing down.
Bonilla-Silva discusses race relations in America when
he discusses Barack Obama. Obama is an African American male who is president
of the United States of America. Now, that right there is a positive example of
showing positivity amongst African Americans, but of course, there is a catch. There is
an abundance of negativity shown in the media about African Americans,
but Barack Obama is shown as something positive so it can’t be true that all things
African American in the media is negative, right? This is honestly what some
people think and it is plain ridiculous. One African American person, who
constantly endures major ridicule and criticism by the way, is shown in a
positive light so anyone who says African Americans are only highlighted for
wrongdoings is wrong. To avoid going off on a tangent about the obvious reasons
as to what is wrong with that previous statement I will conclude here. In order
to fix the media and how it portrays certain races…I have no solution. I honestly
don’t know what to do about this current situation. I can only hope it gets
better. That may sound lazy, but I am at my wits end.
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