Racism In The Media

Blog 6

          When it comes to mainstream television, stereotypes are always going to be prevalent among all communities, classes, races, and genders. African Americans have been depicted as maids (slave, caregiver), natives (“savage”), and clowns (minstrel) on American television since the 1950’s. In shows, such as Amos & Andy, there is an underline of racism through the shows. African American characters are stereotyped as the clown, crook, and lazy in Amos & Andy and many other shows. There are few television shows on African Americans and their family values, way of life, and so on. It is very important how television shows portray African Americans because everything the public absorbs will start to think the negative stereotypes are true (real). In television shows today, such as The Game and Everybody Hates Chris, the stereotypes have remained but in a more implicit way.

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            In Everybody Hates Chris, the main characters still have the maid/slave, “savage”, and clown/minstrel stereotypes. Chris’s father Julius has two jobs to make sure the household has money, but most of the jobs Julius takes on are janitorial and assistant jobs. Janitorial and assistant jobs are a resemblance to be being a maid or slave to someone since they are working for someone. The “savage” stereotype character comes from Chris’s mother Rochelle who is short tempered, humorously sassy, cranky, and strict. Lastly, the Clown stereotype character is Chris. Chris is always the butt of the jokes, he is very unlucky which means he always end up in bad situations, and he wants to be a comedic in the end. In older shows, such as Amos and Andy, the stereotypes are made more clear and present, but, nowadays, the stereotypes seem to be more implicit. Shockingly, the stereotypes are still present today even after so many years of trying to get over racism and oppression. The African American community is stuck with “…naturalized representations of events and situations relating to race, whether ‘factual’ or ‘fictional’, which have racist premises and propositions inscribed in them as a set of unquestioned assumptions” (Hall, p.83).

References

Hall, S. (2011). The white of their eyes: Racist ideologies and the media. In Dines, G. & Humez J. M.
           (Ed.). Gender, race, and, class in media (pp. 81-84). Thousand Oaks, C.A.: Sage

Good link to check out: http://www.thedefendersonline.com/2010/01/29/my-top-10-african-american-tv-shows-of-all-time/