Identity of African American Men Essay

No metaphor net capture completely the complexity of ethnic kinetics in the U. S. Melting pot ignores the persistence and reconfiguration of the ethnicity over the generations. Mosaic, much(prenominal) more apt for pluralistic societies such as Kenya or India, is also static a metaphor it get goings to take in to account the balmy penetration of many ethnic boundaries. Nor is salad manger appropriate the ingredients of a salad bowl atomic number 18 mixed precisely do not change. Rainbow is a tempting metaphor, but rainbows disappear.Symphony, like rainbow, implies near perfect harmony both fail to take into account the variety and range of ethnic bout in the united States. The most accurately descriptive metaphor, the wiz that best explains the dynamics of ethnicity, is kaleidoscope. American ethnicity is kaleidoscopic, i. e. complex and varied, changing form, pattern, color perenni in ally shifting from unitary set of relations to another rapidly changing. When a k aleidoscope is in motion, the separate give the appearance of relationships.The viewer sees and endless variety of variegated patterns, equit equal to(p) as takes lead on the American ethnic landscape. - Lawrence Fuchs (Literature for Com sight 1032) personal identity operator in America was the thought chosen by my English 201 try group. This theme was taken from chapter twenty two of the Literature for composition knowledge and Writing Argu manpowert text book. However, I focuse the broad theme of Identity in America to the more narrowed theme of The uncover of African American manpower in the media. I chose this theme or topic because I felt that I can relate to it and as a matter of fact, it was also interesting to me. But in read to share my look into on the particular topic, I came up with the by-line scruple, How has the identity of African American manpower been displayed by the media banishly or positively? This question was chosen in identify to provoke an contestation for treat custodyt. I conducted several interviews in order to acquire information approximately my selected topic.The medias display of the identity of African American hands can be discussed or looked at from two angles negatively or positively. First, from my cause I can arrange that the media displays African American men in both lights, negatively and positively. But after conducting interviews with several individuals, my cerebration has moderately changed. I was al rooms aw atomic number 18 of the negative images of African/ sable men in the media. But I was not awake(predicate) that this display had evolved overtime. My branch interview was conducted with April T.Glasgow, a communications major at the University of the Virgin Islands on Wednesday 20th February 2008, at approximately ten oclock in the morning. We conducted the interview at her dorms lobby. I had explained the topic preceding to meeting with her, so she already had an idea astir(pr edicate) what issue the discussion would be addressing. Generally, her opinion was that scurrilous men were creation exploited and portrayed negatively by the media. She also verbalize strongly that mysterious men were too often portrayed or given the roles of thugs, gangsters, and pimps in films and magazines.In addition, a suggestion she made on how we could resolve this stereotype was that fateful multitude must unite and stand up against these negative pictures in particular those in rap music videos. The second interview was carried out that tell(prenominal) day with professor Alex Randall. His general statements were that the media has changed over the years. The negative portrayals of the 1960s and 1970s work changed, Randall stated. Randall felt that in modern times, people of color were treated more fairly and given a more positive portrayal in the media.Randall stated that there were many positive images in the media of African Americans, such as Denzel Washi ngton, Barack Obama, Michael Jordan, and Bill Cosby. In addition, Randall said that in anterior years no such image could crap been seen in the media. We are rational human beings and its our choice to choose what part of the spectrum of negative and positive images we would want to emulate, said Randall. This statement impacted me and slightly changed my opinion on the topic. At that point in conducting my primary research for the piece of music, my position on the topic has approximatelywhat been altered.After conducting the interviews with April T. Glasgow and Professor Alexander Randall I mystify become more open minded to the issue. I would adjudge that I was initially a bit biased and reserved on the topic prior to evaluating the topic from both sides negatively and positively. In order to decide which position I was going to take I would have to do more alternative research on the topic. Since I started this research paper my observation and assessment of the media hav e taken a diametrical turn.I now compare and contrast men of other races in the media to African American men. My secondary research was, for the most part, completed use net sources. The terms that I discovered on the web were very profitable and contributed greatly to my research. Three internet denominations were analyzed to achieve the secondary information for my paper. The first clause I reckond was The Medias Bias against black men in America. The article was basically a discussion of a paper create verbally in the New York Times about the plight of American black men.The author, Armstrong Williams, stated that the New York Times article was another grammatical type of major media outlets using negative statistics to consistently cast black men as the scourge of this country. Williams made several strong and interesting statements passim the article that I thought was beneficial to this research paper. For example, according to Williams, The continual encompass age of the black mans plight instead of his take place only hinders his growth, holds back our country from true equality, and hides the truth about the opportunities and challenges that we all face(Williams 4).Williams also suggested that the American public should challenge the lack of coverage of American black progress in this country (Williams 5). In the know century black men have literally gone from being slaves to business owners, government leaders, lawyers, doctors, firemen, generals, entertainers, and educators. No other oppressed class of people anywhere else in the world has advanced its standing in a society this quickly (Williams 6). I was really impressed by the way Armstrong used this statement to present his argument.In addition, Williams stated that the incidence of medicine use, crime, scandal, divorce, and other social ills have increased dramatically for white men, but these statistics are not reported as problems about white men in America (Williams 6). App roximately 9 out of 10 serial killers are white males betwixt the ages of twenty and thirty five. Yet we neer hear these statistics repeated over and over again in the mainstream press, making these crimes synonymous with one particular race as in this case with blacks (Williams 9). Later in the article Williams explained the image the media is creating internationally.The overseas media continuously places black men in negative positions such as school dropouts, dictatorial fathers, and victims of perpetual racism. The manner in which these stories are constructed and then, displayed to listeners and readers eliminates the possibility of believing that black men do not have positive roles (Williams 10). Therefore, I throw with Williams that the repetitive negative articles can create a vicious bike of harmful images and low expectations of black men. The Black Image in the livid Mind is the title of the second internet article that I examined.The article was useful in constr ucting my opinion on the topic of how African American men are displayed in the media whether negatively or positively. The article presented almost useful statistical data that was quite interesting and yet solemn to me. In this article by Robert M. Entman, he stated that a crisscross shot of a Black defendant is four times more credibly to appear in a local television intelligence report than of a White defendant (Entman 2). He went on to say that the impeach is two times more likely to be shown physically restrained in a local television news report than when the accused is a white man (Entman 2).According to Entman, The name of the accused is two times more likely to be shown on disguise in a local TV news report if the defendant is black, rather than white (Entman 2). In addition, he stated that while black actors are now more visible in media, it is an open question as to how well they are being represented (Entman 2). The Third article that I examined was Black youth and spile media current research and appear questions and I found it to be the most interesting of the three.This article was written by Craig Watkins, an Associate Professor of Sociology and Radio-Television- Film at the University of Texas at Austin. The article was basically an outline of some of the important research findings and emergent issues that examine the changing relationship between black American youth and the mass media industry (Watkins 5). Watkins stated that for most of its history the mass media industry has produced images that roll and misrepresent the complexities of the African American lie with (Watkins 9).He stated that contemporaneous media representations of African Americans can be best described as stupid because blacks are simultaneously underrepresented and overrepresented in American media culture (Watkins 9). According to Watkins, blacks are underrepresented in many areas of mass media they are over represented in television sports broadcasts and crime and violence related portrayals (Watkins 13). Watkins said that images of blacks in magazines have increased but they are predominantly portrayed in athletic roles. According to Watkins, African American men are more likely to appear as athletes or musicians (Watkins 14).The strongest statement throughout the article was when Watkins stated that the athleticization of the black men in the media reproduces and popularizes long-standing myths about biological and intellectual differences between blacks and whites (Watkins 15). Further analysis of Watkins article indicated that when African Americans are portrayed in television news it is generally in aggressive, violent, or criminal roles. Also, a recent analysis of the film industry asserts that blacks tend to be circumscribe to low budget features that focus disproportionately on crime, violence, and youth delinquency.The iterative display of blacks in athletic roles creates a limited range of prominent and professiona l role models for young black males being that they are confront with only few media images of successful African American men. The internet articles that I examined clearly showed that there is strong evidence to prove that African American men are negatively and unfairly displayed in the media. After examining these internet articles, I felt that even though they were some positive images of African American men in the media the majority of images are in some way biased or negative.After evaluating and examining my internet sources, I sour back my attention to my English 201 text book, Literature for Composition practice session and Writing Arguments to get some more insight on the matter. art object reading through chapter twenty-three, I came up on a bring up from Lawrence Fuchs that I found to be tied in well with my overall all theme of identity in America. I decided to place this quote at the beginning of the research paper a demeanor of introduction to the overall them e. I chose this quote because it describes the complexity and internal conflicts of identity in America.Speaking of conflicts between identities, Hotel Rwanda is a film that displays such conflict to the extreme. This film was shown in class by my English professor because she said that it was in some way related to our theme and that it could also be used as a part of our secondary research. I did not really understand the connection with our theme until I saw the film. Hotel Rwanda is a historical drama about the hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina played by Don Cheadle during the Rwandan genocide and was directed by terrycloth George in 2004.The delineation is genuinely based on the Rwandan genocide that occurred in 1994 where almost one million of both Tutsi and Hutu individuals were killed. In the movie which is a reflection of what actually took place, the media was used to instigate conflicts between the Tutsi and Hutu. Throughout the actual conflict the media was used as a too l to falsely display Tutsis as the scourge of Rwanda. For example, the radio station, RTLM was used to spread negative and hate messages about the Tutsis such as Why do we hate the Tutsis? They are cockroachesRwanda is Hutu land. (United Arts. Dir.Terry George. United States, 2004) All in all, it is quite evident from the primary and secondary research that there are both negative and positive displays of African American men in the media. Since the interviews I am more aware that the display of African Americans has changed over time for the better. However, from the Internet articles I have discovered that there are still a lot of negative images of African American men in the media. In addition, I well-read that there are still many biases when presenting African American men in media whether on radio, television, or magazines.Overall, the research was very interesting and informative. April T. Glasgow and Professor Alexander Randall were very helpful in making my research paper a success. From carrying out this research paper I was able to conduct some interesting interviews, especially with Professor Randall. I was truly able to critically interpret and analyze the investigation in addition to meliorate my overall research skills. The research process was a learning experience that I will never forget. Works Cited Barnet, Sylvan, Burto William and Cain E. William. Literature for Composition.New York Longman, 2007. Entman, Robert and Rojecki, Andrew. Media and its act of Black Americans. racerelations. about. com. New York. 2008. . Glasgow, April T. Personal Interview. 20 Feb. 2008. Hotel Rwanda. Dir. Terry George. Lions Gate Films and United Artists, 2004. Randall, Alexander. Personal Interview. 20 Feb. 2008. Watkins, S. Craig, Black Youth and Mass Media Current question and Emerging Questions. http//www. rcgd. isr. umich. edu/prba/perspectives/winter2000/cwatkins. pdf. Williams, Armstrong. The Medias Bias Against Black Men in America. 31 March 20 06. .