Sunday, September 5, 2010

THE MEDIA AND MINORITIES - THE DYSFUNCTION JUNCTION

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Taking into consideration the fact that I am just as critical towards black people as I am towards other races, I rarely acknowledge racism as being a justifiable excuse as a means to an end. My personal opinion is that if you are a victim of racism, you simply remove it from your element. Do not let it be a determining factor in anything that happens around you. If you recognize it for what it is, then simply do what it takes to adjust that situation so that it is no longer influencing you, or anything around you. I utilized that mindset as my personal axiom when I was younger and have lived better for it all my life. The problem with many people (especially black folks) is that they allow it be a crutch in their lives. It reserves a state of “oppression” within the black race’s ethos, which causes a constant feeling of [self induced] inferiority in comparison to the white man. This is what brings me to the crux of this article. The MEDIA is the single most influential form of social information dissemination in American society. Obviously one of the most popular media outlets is televised news. Even with the internet currently being one of the most ubiquitous news sources, tens of millions of people still watch the news (on tv) to see what’s going on, and now, much of the news is viewed on the internet in the form of video clips, which illustrates the point that even though the internet is preferable to television by the younger generation, television has accommodated this shift by providing their video footage on the net for viewing. Because of this, [televised] media remains one of the top sources of media information.
Many minorities have faulted the media for surreptitiously propagating racism, particularly televised news media. I used to scoff at this in the past. In the past 10 years (due to the shift from tv to internet as being 1 of the main media sources) now I’m not so sure. Being on the internet, news is now more of an interactive experience where people can collaborate and comment on any given news story, which provides the racist wack jobs with a platform; a way to solicit their hatred of other races and to openly share their racism with others like them. They couldn’t do that 15 years ago when simply watching it on tv, at least not to the extent that they can on the internet. There have been many studies and surveys conducted by the media regarding the issue. It benefits them in that they can now closely track audience statistics and analyze the data, ultimately boosting their ratings based on the findings.
Starting with news coverage, why is it that most of the time, when a [black] bystander is interviewed during news coverage, they somehow end up being the most embarrassing, ignorant representation of the black race that the news reporter can find? When I say this, I mean they actually physically look like they were the worst choice the news reporter could have made, yet it happens many times. They will find the black person that is the most unattractive, complete with obviously extra large lips, unkempt hair, overweight, poorly dressed, louder than average voice, the blackest idiom , and will choose this person as the one whose “opinion” they want to hear on the related news event. If you scan the background crowd, you will notice plenty of decent looking, well dressed, intelligent looking black people that they could have chosen instead, but they didn’t. They choose this black embarrassment of a person to be seen by the millions of people watching as the one who can best convey the situation at the scene. This seems to be the standard for news reporting, particularly the Fox News Network. They are repeatedly mentioned as practicing unscrupulous tactics to keep their ratings up, particularly in the way they present news involving people of color. They have a certain “formula” that they use to literally drill the most negative aspects of a racially based news story into its viewer’s heads, sometimes to the point where if you’re a minority, you can’t bear to watch it anymore out of anger. If the media is in fact using these tactics to paint a certain picture of minorities, one would have to ask, “Does it work?” Do people actually watch news footage and base their cogitations of other races on it? In a study / survey conducted about racial relations based on media information and influence, FORTY PERCENT of [white] participants admitted that they base, at least in part, their prejudices of other races (the number one race being black) on the information they obtain from various media sources. What was the number one prejudice that white people had towards blacks that was media based?............*CRIME*. THE NUMBER ONE [MIS] CONCEPTION THAT WHITE PEOPLE HAD ABOUT BLACKS [BASED ON THE MEDIA] IS THAT DUE TO DEMOGRAPHICS AND CULTURAL UPBRINGING, BLACK PEOPLE [BY DEFAULT] HAVE A HIGHER PROPENSITY TO COMMIT CRIMES THAN OTHER RACES. Survey wise, white people said that the most they see black people on tv was via crime related news and reality tv shows, ergo, they assumed that black people are basically criminals. The 60 percent of white people who did not judge other races based on what they saw in the media were white people that were born and raised, and / or employed amongst other races, particularly blacks and hispanics. This illustrates that you have a lot of ignorant white people on this planet who instead of educating themselves about other cultures, choose to let the media influence them, and unfortunately, the media is not about education, it’s about RATINGS. You end up with a lot of disillusioned white women who clutch their purses and put their arms tightly around their teenage daughters every time a black man is walking next to them on the street because they assume that since the man is black, he’s going to steal her purse, then abduct and rape her daughter. They base this fear on what they see on the news. You end up with a lot of disillusioned white men who will do whatever they can to make sure that any black man they interact with is underneath them. They make sure that black men don’t get positions of power or superiority in companies and businesses, they make sure that blacks stay locked up in prisons longer than other races for the exact same crimes committed, the police make sure that out on the street, blacks are harassed, humiliated, intimidated, and surveilled as much as humanly possible. With law enforcement it’s particularly pathetic, as one would assume that in their line of work, they would be better judges of character than most of society because of the fact that they deal with people all day, every day. That is definitely not always the case. There are many police officers on our streets that grew up around only whites, and live and work around only whites. Those police in particular are the ones that internalize the media and base their treatment of blacks on what they see, just like the millions of other ignorant white citizens out there. These are the cops that pull black people over on traffic stops and invent reasons as to why. These are the cops that are eager to disrespect you and everything you stand for if you are black. These are the cops that will draw their gun on you, even though you are giving them absolutely no reason to do so…….and these are the cops that have “accidentally” emptied their clips into black men that had no weapons and weren’t being combative; all because they judged that black person, and every black person by what they see on the media about black people.
Another media outlet that will manipulate race to get ratings is reality shows. Depending on which show you watch, you see a blatant racial dichotomy. Most of the reality shows that feature positivity, fun, personal gain /growth seem to have a [majority] of white people in them; “Survivor”, “America’s Next Top Model”, “Big Brother”, “American Idol”, “Jersey Shore”. Those are some examples. Those types of shows range from fun to stupid, but they are not considered to be “negative” in nature, and most of the people featured in them happen to be white. Most of the reality shows that have a negative [criminal] element seem to have a majority of minorities in them; “Cops”, “The First 48”, “Lockup”, “D.E.A.”, “Cold Case Files”, and all those “Court TV” type shows. In those types of shows, the majority of the “participants” are either black or latino. Any kid from the tv show “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?” could grasp the main gist these reality shows are trying to convey; White people = fun / positive life……..minority people = criminal / negative life. White people see these reality shows and translate them as a literal racial classification. When they want to watch a “black” reality tv show, they tune into “Cops” (many viewers actually identify “Cops” as being a “black” tv show). When people want to watch a white reality tv show, they tune into “Jersey Shore”.
A related type of tv show to the reality show would be the more specific “talk show” genre. I’m not talking about the standard talk shows like “Dave Letterman” and “Jay Leno”, where the main guests consist of celebrities and there is no audience participation, I’m talking about the “discussion based”, or “panel based” talk shows wherein specific issues are discussed at length. These shows base their material on a specific subject, or set of subjects and choose a small panel of participants (sometimes from opposing sides, and sometimes all from the same point of view) to discuss the subject. In this type of media, just as in the others I’ve mentioned up until now, racial tones are in many cases, blatantly apparent. When you have a talk show where the subject matter is intelligent, educated, and positive, the majority of the guest panel seems to be white. “Oprah” (yes, OPRAH), “Phil Donahue”, “Montell Williams” (yep, him TOO), “Ellen”, “Dr. Phil”, “Regis And Kelly”, all host shows in which the majority of the subject matter is of intelligent design, and in most cases, their guest panel is a majority of decent, intelligent people, mostly white. Then you have what most minorities refer to as the “ghetto talk shows”. These are the talk shows whose panel is usually comprised up of young, under educated, mostly minority participants; “Jerry Springer”, “Maury Povich”, "Sin Censura" and “Geraldo” are the most famous ones. These shows usually have subject matter that is based on strife; strife in relationships, racial strife, and gender based strife. These shows thrive on negativity, and they weed out minorities to act out this strife. True to form, you have guests that do things from fist fight with each other, to spit on each other, to take off their clothes; all extremely tasteless, immature ways to handle their personal problems. The media wants you to believe that only minorities handle their problems this way, so 60% of their guests are black and hispanic. The ignorant white public sees this on tv and mentally ingests it. Little white “Johnny” sees it and asks his dad why all black men leave their girlfriends after they get them pregnant; little white “Suzy” sees it and asks her mom if she can have sex when she’s 11 years old too, just like the Mexican girl on the talk show. These ignoramuses see this stuff and "conclude" that an entire race conducts itself in the same fashion. They see a young, pregnant minority girl walking down the street and say to themselves, “Wow, I guess it is true that most black and hispanic girls have babies before the age of 21”. A black man can be pulled over during a traffic stop in a white neighborhood, and during the stop, white people drive by, looking and smiling, thinking to themselves, “MAGNIFICENT! Another nigger criminal taken off the streets by our fine police department! KUDOS TO THE POLICE!” even though the black guy only got pulled over because his left tail light was out. Regarding the talk shows, I must cite that there is one exception to the rule; the 40% of people on the “ghetto” talk shows that are actually white, and those would be the white honkee trailer trash folks. These are the only types of white people that are constantly televised in a negative fashion. You must take into consideration that these people are [white] society’s rejects. These are the white people that are the “shame” of their family bloodlines. These are the white people that were kicked out of the house, that never finished school, that used drugs, and that were alcoholics. This is an example of how white people manage their families. The ones that aren’t “acceptable”, they simply discard them; throw them out on the street and disown them altogether, similar to a family dog that is too old and can no longer take care of itself. Why put anymore time and effort into taking care of it? Just get rid of them damn thing………..

FACT: 65% of “retirement” home residents nationwide are WHITE.

White people do not like to take care of their elderly. They dump them into retirement homes and pay someone else to do it. White people do not like to be responsible for anyone that is too much of a burden on them, including their own family, which brings us full circle back to white trash. In society, white trash are considered equal to blacks status wise. Many of them live in ghettos (unkempt trailer parks being the ghettos of choice) and are societal pariahs. The media uses these “hybrid” white people to accentuate the point they are attempting to make about minorities. White trash people are featured on the ghetto talk shows alongside blacks and mexicans. The media wants the public to believe that white trash people and minorities are not civilized, so they pick and choose us (according to level of ignorance) to appear on talk shows that feature a conflict of some sort as the subject matter.
There was a particularly interesting book I read about a year ago that illustrates race’s effect on the media and how it is displayed as a result, and one batch of data resonated highly with me. The data covered minority roles (characters) in television and how they are portrayed. The first fact to note is that over the past 20 years, television has come a long way in the AMOUNT of minority roles that are now on television. They have definitely advanced in that area. The next fact to note is that even though they as a people have more roles on television, they don’t necessarily portray them as positively as they could. There are certain stereotypical traits that the media refuses to “abolish” when they create minority tv characters. I will list them in no particular order:

1. Most minority characters in negative AND positive tv character roles share the same character trait of losing their tempers. Regardless of how positive the character is in general, they always have that “trait” of a bad temper, as if to say that when minorities are placed in any given stressful or negative situation, the only way they can mentally or emotionally deal with stress is by becoming irate.

2. Many minority characters in tv shows prefer to resolve problems through physical violence rather than an amicable settlement. You rarely see minority tv characters that are put into a difficult situation where they would prefer to sit down and talk it out like adults as opposed to wanting to kick somebody’s ass, or shoot someone. 30% of all minority tv characters choose to solve their problems with violence, whereas 4% of all white tv characters choose the same method of conflict resolution.

3. 40% of tv show character roles depict minorities as criminals. 14% of tv show character roles depict whites as criminals. So basically, if you’re a [minority] actor looking for a spot on tv and you have an agent, the chances are 40% that your agent is going to tell you that if you WANT the role, you’re going to have to rob someone, rape someone, stab someone, or shoot someone.

4. Of the minorities who play criminals in tv roles, 75% of the crimes they commit (as their characters) are VIOLENT in nature. Minorities are not hired for tv roles as white collar criminals. They don’t hire minorities to play criminals that commit crimes like computer hacking, money laundering, insider trading, embezzlement, identity theft, casino card counting, or the like. They reserve those types of crimes (crimes which by the way require a high amount of intellect to execute) for white people. Also note that those types of crimes don’t physically maim people or take lives. All crime is bad, but crimes where people are violently injured or killed are looked upon as being especially vicious by society. Those types of roles are “reserved” [mainly] for minorities.

5. Minority tv show characters (the ones that play people that are employed) are rarely shown as being employed by a business model that requires any real intellect. A WHOPPING 98% of all tv characters portrayed on television that perform menial labor (janitors, maids, “professional” house cleaners, gardeners, babysitters) are MINORITIES. Not even ALL minorities; they are either BLACK, or HISPANIC…..that’s IT. Of the characters that have jobs that are above “menial” status, they are rarely in positions of authority. They are usually “grunts” or mid level employees. Minority tv characters that are employed are always at a level within an employment business model where they have to answer to someone that is WHITE. The television show based media outlet is extremely resistant to depicting white people having to answer to minorities in a work environment. “White America” is not at the point where they would be willing to tolerate this during their “down time”. They are not ready to turn on the tv and watch shows where a minority is in charge in a work environment, delegating their authority to all the whites around them. As a society, we are not quite that “civilized” as of yet. Racism is still pulsing too powerfully through the veins and souls of the white man for them to have to sit and watch a bunch of blacks and mexicans telling them where to go and what to do, even if it’s only on a tv show. That’s too close to home for them. Oh, by the way, only 4% of all tv shows depict a minority as a boss, supervisor, CEO, president, administrator, director, employer, superintendent, authoritarian, or leader of any given work environment.

6. On tv, most minorities are depicted as being foul mouthed. 75% of minority tv show characters use inappropriate language (cussing) in many cases, even if it doesn’t compliment the character’s development. Although they can’t get away with as many vulgar words on tv as they can in the movies, there are still enough words that can be used, and minorities far outweigh white people as the ones who use them, the [subliminal] point being that minorities tend to be more vulgar (and less civilized) than whites.

7. In tv (advertising) commercials, the more expensive the product, the fewer minorities that are portrayed as purchasers of the product. When tv commercials want to advertise inexpensive products; food, clothes, entertainment, and (up to) cars, they will happy hire minorities to act in those commercials as purchasers of those products. Anything more expensive than cars, all of a sudden minorities don’t exist. In tv commercials where they sell diamonds, motor homes, boats, real estate, stocks, etc. you don’t see minorities as purchasers in the commercials anymore, insinuating that the market for more expensive commodities is reserved for white people, because they are the only ones that can afford them.

8. In most tv shows, black and white character interaction is still taboo. I’m not talking about interracial relationships; I’m talking about the interaction between two men or two women, or blacks and whites in a NON sexual, but intimate situation. Us men have our friends, buddies, homies, aces, whatever you wanna call them. They’re the guys that you know have your back, regardless of the situation. If you get in trouble, if you get in a fight, if the police ruff you up, if you’re having money problems, if you’re having marital problems, many men have that one guy who they lean on as the one that is his “brother from another mother”; the one who wasn’t born his brother, but he’s just as close as being a blood brother by association. You almost never see that level of comradery portrayed on television between minorities and whites. Tv characters of different races are only allowed to be close (to a point), then it’s every race for themselves. The [physical] contact between races is kept to a minimum. If you’re watching a tv cop show drama, and the show has 2 partners in it that are white, and 1 of the partners gets killed in the line of duty, the (typical) reaction by the surviving cop is that he wants to be the one to tell his partner’s family about the death. He will go to his partner’s house, break the news to the partners (white) wife, and she will break down and cry, and the white cop usually hugs his partner’s new widow. Now, let’s say of the 2 partners, one was white, and the other was black. The white partner gets killed. The black surviving cop goes to his partner’s house and his dead partner’s WHITE wife answers the door. The black cop breaks the news to the new white widow. She breaks down and cries, and the black cop apologizes a thousand times over. She wipes her tear filled eyes, thanks the black cop, then CLOSES THE DOOR, NO HUG, NO LOVE. The white media taboo paranoia in full bloom. The white surviving cop can be depicted hugging the new WHITE widow, but the BLACK surviving cop CANNOT be depicted hugging the new white widow. Subliminal racism in all its glory.
With all that I’ve said, is it safe to say that the media attempts to influence its viewers based on what it reports and how it reports it? Is it safe to say that regarding minorities, the media uses certain tactics to ensure that minorities are only shown from a negative point of view? Think about it the next time you watch the news, a reality show, a tv series, or a talk show. Pay close attention to what race the guests / characters are, what the subject matter consists of, and don’t pay attention to it for a single viewing; pay attention to it over an extended period of time and see if you notice any sort of a pattern based on race, and subject matter. Many of you will be quite surprised to discover what you witness……

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