Going along the lines of what we were discussing this week
about how the imagery of that we see on television affects our interpretation
of the outside world, and color-blind racism I saw a very interesting
documentary on PBS that was actually about the 22 ward in Chicago, which is the
ward I just so happen to live in. The
documentary focused on the division that existed between the neighborhoods of
North Lawndale, which is primarily black, and Little Village (my neighborhood),
which primarily Mexican. The Little
Village church and North Lawndale church established a relationship with each
other in the hopes of bringing the two neighborhoods closer together, and in
doing so brought out a lot of the things that people never wanted to say. From what they had seen on television
(cultivation theory) the Mexican community viewed the black community as
violent and unwelcoming to outsiders but the black community viewed them the
same way. The Mexican community was
afraid of the blacks and vice-versa and the cause for this fear was mostly
attributed to what was mostly based on what was seen on the evening news. It’s pretty much what the Prime Suspects
article was discussing about the idea of scripted news and the effects it has
on the public. I guess my point with
this post is that what is seen on the news affects every racial group and
begins to divide communities on lines that are only partially true. Latinos and blacks are the most harshly
discriminated group in the country right now but the news even has them fearing
each other. In the documentary that I
was watching both communities were able to find a lot of common ground and the
people that attended the meetings got along well enough, but the fact still
remains that the scripted news cycle that places blacks and latinos as perpetrators
of crime has given them a poor image not just amongst whites but other
minorities as well.
My questions to you all are:
How is it possible that no one (aside from us, and the scholars we
examine) else can see the harm that comes from the constant usage of black and
latinos as perpetrators of crime on the news?
Why are these communities be so complacent about the ways in
which they are portrayed by the media?
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ReplyDeleteTypo*
DeleteUnfortunately, because of cultivation theory and the mean world syndrome, white Americans learn about African Americans and Latinos not through personal contact, but through the portrayal of minorities shown in the news and prime time television.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, Blacks and Latinos too consume these same images about each other and may believe the negative characteristics that are portrayed.
This leads me to believe that minorities, in a strange way, still seek rewards of whiteness as Lipsitz stated on his essay, "The possessive investment in whiteness" (1998). On this essay, Lipisitz stated that throughout history, minority groups have tried to please whites in order to gain something at each other's expense. An example he gives is that Native Americans held slaves in part to prove to whites that they could develop 'civilized' European American ways (pg. 3) and also that they would return runaway black slaves to the Americans. This depicts how minority groups can perhaps try to adopt ways to be in the same playing field level as whites even if it means stepping on each other on the way.
Perhaps there could still be some tension amongst minorities on whether who deserves the white privilege?
What's your opinion?
-Marlene R