When most of us turn on the televisions to watch a sitcom or maybe even a talk show, we often see African- Americans acting as if they had little or no sense at all. Their use of bad language and vocabulary, as well as being overly dramatic in everything that they say or do sends the wrong message to people in homes watching with their children as well as people all across the world. It is mainly because the people who create and write these shows are not of the African- American race, and they're only designing these characters based on what they have seen over the past years? Whether it is or it isn't, the representation of African- Americas on television shows as well as in the media are mainly being depicted from people's point of views that are not our own. According to the National Rights Coalition (NRC), there is a pattern of racial and gender discrimination in the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) New York headquarters, which alone employs 2,549 people.

Of those workers, in the network news division, of 645 employees, 96 percent were white. In that department, which monitors, writes about and broadcasts news across the globe, only 16 were African Americans, eight

becoming dominant over one another. Also we do need more African Americans as well

as Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans behind the scenes of television studios and newspapers, therefore having a much broader outlook on different races and genders.

hold and because it allows Whites to excuse institutional discrimination and become desensitized to racial inequalities (Stereotypes in the Media 2).

Why are there not more blacks on shows such as ER? On the other hand, maybe if people displayed African- Americans as professionals instead of drug dealers or prisoners, our youth would have more to look forward to, since the television and Internet are our main sources of entertainment this day in age. For example, when The Cosby Show first aired, many people of all races were in awe, mainly because they have never seen or were not used to African Americans being portrayed as an upper class family. The father was a doctor, the mother was a lawyer and all of the children had the opportunity to have a top quality education. However, some say that the show gave many people the idea that if they can succeed (The Huxtables), then everyone of that race can. In the opinion of Feagin and Innis, the shows popularity has set back race relations because its view of Black assimilation fails to take into account the context of the world outside of the four walls of the Huxtable house!

The television show Roc was also another show that was based on real life situations that most African Americans go through. Although some of the characters were made to be overly dramatic in some situations, the message of the show was always a strong one. It seems as the years go on, television has more shows with stronger Black casts and characters, but there is and seems that there will be stereotypes for a while to come. On the other side of things, maybe we as African Americans give people reasons to write shows that stereotype us. If a person constantly sees things such as Black males acting as if they were thugs, or maybe even women dressing and acting as if they have no type of dignity or pride, maybe that is all a person can write about, being that those are the only things that they have seen. Instead of people always complaining about how badly we are represented, we should examine the way we are and the ways in which we act. Standing on a street corner, drin!

Some common words found in the essay are:
African Americans, Stereotypes Media, African- Americans, Harvey Girlfriends, African- American, Native Americans, Feagin Innis, Living Color, NBC York, Asian Mirror, african americans, television media, overly dramatic, racial gender, cable television industry, racial 2, characters based, race gender, television industry, african- american, race relations,
Approximate Word count = 2085
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)