Is race really an issue?
Does mass media have the ability to affect our perception on race? And if so, to what extent does it mold our thinking to fit the exact mold that it has set? What factors affect our perception of race and the definition of what a race should be? The essays in the book answer these questions, but I will also provide my own insight into answering these questions.What was most interesting about the essays was that they were written from very diverse perspectives on the effects of mass media on our perception of race. The first author looks at our perception from an African American point of view, or at least in my opinion, an African American point of view. Bell Hooks says that perception of blacks in the media distorts the societal perception of the roles of black people. She says that in the media black people most often seen as servants, unequal to their white counterparts. She says, "While superficially appearing to present a portrait of racial social equality, mass media actually work to reinforce assumptions that black folks should
also says that while media, politics, and education are still in the hands of white people and white people speak for humanity, they still have yet to reach a situation where the white race and white cultural agendas are not in the rising. Dyer finishes his argument by saying, " Attention is sometimes paid to 'white ethnicity' but this always means an identity based on cultural origins such as British, Italian or Polish...Irish American, Catholic-American and so on." He also quotes John Ibson as saying, "...being, say, Polish, Catholic, or Irish may not be as important to white Americans as some might wish. But being white is." always be cast in supporting roles in relation to white characters." She says that, while blacks have challenged the representations of blacks in the media, they have not challenged it enough because there are less negative representations that reinforce white supremacy. Hooks says that movies, which were created to "intervene in and challenge white supremacist assumptions", were difficult to understand by some b
Some common words found in the essay are:
Bell Hooks, Hazel Carby, Richard Dyer, , African American, Catholic Irish, mass media, white people, white supremacy, American Catholic-American, perception race, John Ibson, african american view, african american, blacks media, raced people, black people, speak humanity, affect perception race, white race,
Approximate Word count = 703
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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