Racism has many faces in our society; the mainstream media plays a large roll in who is accepted and who is not accepted in society. “Racism is seen in every facet of society people who have the power to grab the privilege.” (Richard Lee, 2019) The history of American has been taught too many generations as the foundation of our democracy. Then you realize that it all was a lie, and our country was built upon racism, discriminated, and marginalization because of the color of their skin. People were oppressed from having their basic needs and from having what’s been called the American dream.
I will explain how different forms of media have shaped the minds of Americans. Who gets to be called an American and who’s not, the dominant white culture planned to maintain their power and privilege in a multicultural society. Critical race theory explains who is inferior who was superior, who is a foreigner who is the other American. Media analyzes in modern and postmodern societies believe that media is the teller of the story, confirms and frequently changes the picture of culture itself (Anderson,1991; Condor, 1988; Fairclough, 1995; Hall, 2001).
There is devastating proof that the media is leading to this marginalization, tracking and promoting ethnicities of certain social categories (Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke, & Roberts,1978; Kernot,1990). People watch the news, some religiously and some occasions, but no matter how many times you what the news, you hear what the newscaster wants you to hear. You must ask yourself is everything newscasters are saying is true or is it a lie? As stated, we are hearing storytellers modifying the image of our society to us, not knowing if it’s true or not.
We meet and ‘learn’ our fellow citizens through tales, both factual or fictional genres, and consequently stigmatize the language we depict. The stories are skewed. Which does not give us the true story about our society or the people living in it, that can lead to situations that are more dangerous than the narratives being spoken by the main stream media outlets, single acts of racially motives crimes at schools and colleges, mass shootings killing hundreds of people in cities such as Los Angeles, Texas, and Florida that have happened all over the country.
In the political climate, we are in today where president stereotyping immigrates migrating coming to America seeking asylum, as drug dealers, and rapists. African Americans are portrayed as violent, drug dealers, and lazy these stories are told by white society who wants you to believe them, but then are being repeated by other cultures some who may not know any better. The media needs to give out accurate information so that citizens can know the truth about different ethnicities that lead to ignorance about other cultures misleading can be a threat to our democracy. It doesn’t take a lot of time to plant an idea in your mind especially if it repeated over, over again.
Americans need to stop allowing the media sound bites driven by the dominant narrative to shape people’s experiences. Understanding the involvement of nonnative objectification is pertinent, given a conceivable outcome of ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and doubt of foreigners. (Kiang, L., Broome, M., Chan, M., Stein, G. L., Gonzalez, L. M., & Supple, A. J., 2019) Treating someone as a foreigner you are denying their identity as an American, general discrimination influences your mental health when people are being treated as a foreigner can influenced their self-esteem. (Richard Lee, 2019) Foreigner objectification is affecting our Somali, Asian and Latinx communities across the nation, one reason is English is not their main language which causes problems in trying to communicate. For the second or third generation, English is their main language they still experience foreigner objectification because of the color of their skin.
Among Latinos, as well as other US workers bunches, far-reaching results have been connected to foreigner-base inclinations, counting low-quality connections and social intuitive, low self-esteem, and increase uneasiness, weakness withdrawals, outrage, and character disarray (Huynh, Devos, & Smalarz, 2011; Tran & Lee, 2014). Chinese American youth, low English capabilities connected to their discernment of being treated like a ceaseless nonnative (Kim, Wang, Deng, Alvarez, & Li, 2011). You get jobs with higher pay if your skin color is lighter, hearing someone’s name if it sounds black can stop people from returning your call for a job or receiving mental health services or any other services.
Foreigner objectification has many different effects on the lives of immigrates who live in the U.S, the ramifications can issue that can last your whole life. The thought of having to deal with mental health issues because you at not a part of the dominate society means that we still have a long way to go. We are making significant steps in the right direction and our society is going to have to fight to change the narrative until everyone is treated equally. Liberals have created policies that seem to be for people of color, but they help white people more. Example title 9, providing access for girls and women to play sports that helps lower-income white students and white women in the corporate world. (Richard Lee, 2019)
Understanding the dominant narrative in our society by white supremacy, assimilation in our institution’s government that oppresses people of color. Dark Americans and other individuals of color within the joined together states kept running in doing long term designs all racial bad treachery not fair within this so-called “criminal equity framework” but moreover demanded on well-being care, employment, lodging, funds, and in presentation to numerous natural dangers and toxicities. Precise prejudice in America has not and does not happen by osmosis. It is intentional and pondered. It is the result of “control” of force and complete institutionalized racial inclinations, separation, extremism, scorn and sterilizing in numbers. (Chavis, 2015)
Coordinate Encounters are exact with, would investigate are appearing that are over 99% of Asian American adolescents have had at slightest one experience in which they felt like they were being stereotyped as a demonstrate minority. (Thompson and Kiang 2010) The model minority can have some very negative effects when the stereotype becomes the same understanding of other cultures that they can cause tension between other cultures. This tension can be used to divide people of color which also helps the dominant culture if you can divide people of color from working together to bring equality to all people no matter your ethnic background then the dominate culture wins.
The division has worked for a long time but that has been changing as everyone is beginning to see that we are stronger together then we are apart. In conclusion, racism does have many different faces that have plagued our country from its conception. We see racism in how our news depicts other cultures by the lens that they want society to see them. The media plays a part in who can be called an American by using images of that show’s white families happy and other cultures in a negative image.
Our political system policies and laws affect people of color in their stride to make a better life for their families. Television shows play the same part as the news and other media outlets by showing images of people of color being drug dealers or addicts. The systematic racism that affects people of color ability to gain access to good education, affordable housing, access to resources and the ability to go to college to get better-paying jobs. Racism different faces can be shown but we as Americans still must keep working toward a world of inclusion where all people are treated equally.