A bigger problem

In the article “Where My Girls At? Negotiating Black Womanhood in Music Videos. Emerson highlights that there are stereotypical presentations of Black women in the videos provided. There are two types of presentation for women which are sexist and independent. The author examined many videos to see what the portrayals of Black women are. Some of the stereotypical identities Black women were portrayed as in modern videos were the same as how Black women were portrayed during or right after the time of slavery. This is essential because there is this idea of how Black women should be portrayed in society, so they can “look” a certain way.

I linked this article to how Black men are portrayed in videos as well. Although this focused on Black women, there is strong negative connotations for Black males as well. For my final presentation I am focusing on how Black music artist live up to these stereotypical ideas of how Black men are in society.we find it common now a days, in videos to see women as sex symbols and men living lavishing lives chasing “sexy” women. There are few reasons as to why it is important to further question what this mainstream example means for us.

As scholars, it is important to discuss how these hidden forms of racism can bring more negativity than positivity in society. We are more open to discussing discourse via internet. However, it is important to highlight that during the time of slavery Black discussions were usually discussed in hidden places like salons. Now, with open discussion we see a more complex environment where people are more open to discussing the difference between what Black and White is.

For example, in class we discuss a lot of discourse online because of people’s perspective on what Black and White is.  One topic that is relates to this was Miss America winning 2013. This article ( (http://bit.ly/1duqM9r) on Miss America 2013. People questioned if she was Arab, Latina, or Indian, or Muslim. This is essential to understand, because after seeing many tweets asking the same question, it can be emphasized that online discourse can create commonality between people.

Instead of learning more about her via other online sources many people felt the need to tweet similar comments and create the same mind set, therefore linking America to an individual’s being white in order to win.

In another example, in the movie Hunger Games an article (http://bit.ly/GO1eUh) discusses how individuals tweeted and questioned how a Black girl played a character in the hunger games, although in the book no race was specified for the female character. People were angry that the “nice, good” characters are Black.

This is important when learning about discourse online, because as we see discourse creates commonality between people’s mind set, where individuals start questioning the same kind thing, instead of looking at the big picture. This pertains to the idea of how Black males and female re portrayed in mainstream music videos because it highlights that people are more concerned with differentiating differences between people instead of questioning what are causing these factors to become such as big problem online. I would like to emphasize that if people are accepting of how Black males and females are portrayed than it would become more of a struggle for individuals to accept a different perspective that they might not be used to, which in this case is understanding that there are many good portrayals in media for minorities.

If people do not question how Black women are portrayed in media and how Black males are portrayed and do not question the mainstream ideas that are replicated through the use of music videos, movies, and much more there would still be the wrong type of discourse present, where individuals are more curious as to what justifies where minorities should be placed in media and less questions as to what factors contribute to this commonality, where many individuals try to separate people based on their race instead  of looking at individuality.

A question that I am curious about are do you see commonality in many individuals when reading comments online? Do you think this stops people from actually questioning what the real problem in our society is?