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Media Representations of Ethnic Minority Males in regards to Black Males

Outline

Long before black men emigrated to various parts of Europe and America. White men already formulated certain stereotypes about them. These stereotypes have a negative effect on black men as they have come across images that portray them as violent, aggressive criminals, barbaric and lascivious individuals. Furthermore, the media has been a massive source for generating unfavourable stereotypes of black men in society, which are seen in news channels, music videos, TV shows etc. These unfavourable representations and depictions of black males have created a society in which racism is clearly evident. After the enslavement of black people, one would expect that such exaggerated and stereotypical ideologies of black men would be non-existent. Alternatively, racism still remains within society and therefore demonstrates detrimental effects. Major historical events such as slavery, have constructed the society we live in today and how we perceive it. Unfortunately, negative stereotypes from the past have flowed into the current stereotypes that exist today.

When these detrimental stereotypes are portrayed in regions where people are not exposed to many ethnic minority groups, their assumptions are negatively biased and therefore have unfavourable ramifications. For this reason, it is necessary for those who aspire to work with the media to equalise the depictions in order that young black and ethnic minority men can have a good role model to look up to, which can have a positive effect on the black and ethnic minority communities. The media representations take up a massive role in ways in which black men are being portrayed, and this in return corresponds with unlawful behaviour. There is a culturally significant issue that involves informative authority. Positive examples start within the household. Nonetheless, that does not alleviate the media’s accountability for the pessimistic effects that have been caused by stereotypes. The trouble with stereotypes is that they are unreasonably unfavourable with fewer countervails than the white audiences. Though the choices are seriously narrow, then the dividing consequences of negative stereotypes on the black community, particularly black men, therefore, become remarkably evident, and the effects it has also become more obvious. All through this blog, I will deliberate stereotypes of the past that are associated with black men and link them to those of the present moment alongside and examine doable resolutions related to it. Secondly, I will deliberate reasons as to why the media patterns are distorted and link it to ways in which the producers in the media are biased and thirdly, I will deliberate the perceptions of black men and crime within society.

Stereotypes associated with black men

To start with, within every society, every ethnic minority group has some sort of a stereotype associated with them, whether we like to accept it or not. Not every single stereotype is negative although the majority of them are. At this stage in time, a lot of individuals maintain multiple stereotypical ideologies based on specific ethnicities, social classes or genders. Stereotypes are not a flaw of understanding but are a structure of social control and individuals are either offended by them or choose to enact these stereotypes. For example, when we speak about the stereotypes that society has placed upon a certain individual/or group of people, especially black men. Black men are typically perceived as lawbreakers, uneducated, consumers of marijuana or worse case lesser human beings. Although it is statistically proven that white males are actually, in fact, more violent and engage in crimes more so than black males.  For instance, according to a survey created by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2015, black boys composed approximately 13% of the U.S. population. But in 2013 they accounted for 38% of arrests for violent crimes and nearly 30% of arrests for property crimes.

A few of the academic scholars will be used to discuss these concerns. The first scholar is Katheryn Russel Brown, an American professor, she makes reference to the stereotype as the ‘criminal black man’, due to correlation between criminality and black males have become interchangeable within society. In Katheryn’s book, The Colour of Crime: Racial Hoaxes, White Fear, Black Protectionism, Police Harassment and Other Macroaggressions (1998), in the book she discusses that black men are usually depicted as physical threats to society. They are often condemned for all the wrong that happens. As stated by Katheryn, the ‘criminal black man’ is a fantasy and that the stereotype permits the utilisation of ‘racial fabrications’, in which she characterises as:  ‘when someone fabricates a crime and blames it on another person because of his race OR when an actual crime has been committed and the perpetrator falsely blames someone because of his race’. [Russel, 1998:69]. This quote does indeed illustrate the world we live in, not only are such labels consigned upon black men, but on the other ethnic minority groups as well.

The second scholar we will be discussing this matter with is Linda Tucker. In her book Lockstep and Dance: Images of Black Men in Popular Culture (2007) she debates that the criminal black males’ portrayal in pop culture aid to maintain the image. In her book, she makes mention that one of the remarkably compelling approaches to criminalising black males, particularly young black men is the usage of crime as an analogy for race.  Within the framework of sports, younger black males are often deemed as applicable to this sort of career. Statistics also prove that black men often excel in various kinds of sports, in comparison to white males. It is speculated that in some sort of way sports excludes black males from society. Becoming a sportsman is an opportunity for some young black males that aspire to be seen on TV as well as to demonstrate to the entire world they’re born to be sportsmen. So, to ensure that they achieve their target, they sacrifice their education in return to be outstanding in sports. Although in reality, only a few black men would consider going on to become professional sportsmen. This strategy is based on blandishment, encouragement by peers and therefore results in potentially harmful behaviour.

The criminalisation of ethnic minority men on TV is also evident when taking a look at stories based on immigration. Almost half of the Latino and black immigrant male characters are portrayed as engaging with criminal acts or illegal behaviour and almost over 40% are portrayed as being imprisoned, whilst less than 10% of male white immigrants were presented committing illegal acts [Barrios, 2012]. Nonetheless, crime has an unfavourable place within society, such depictions of black and ethnic minority males in detrimental predicaments have a massive effect on ways in which people in society can understand them. The findings suggest that the media influences racial perspectives of the viewer/observer.

When taking a look at crime TV shows during the 1960s to 1980s, the majority of characters were often depicted as victims of assaults, then were white male characters. Men from minority backgrounds were portrayed as the prime assailants of violence. At an unbalanced percentage, young black men and ethnic minority men are being portrayed as aggressive, because they are being depicted as dangerous and violent characters and with a larger amount of vicious attacks in comparison to their white counterparts [Gunter, 1998]. Therefore, this imposes that the ideology that black males and ethnic minority men are liable to aggression and criminality.

 Perceptions of black men within society

For many years the connection between crime and race in the United Kingdom and the United States has become a controversial matter. Crime is one of the publics top fears and the and the media depict it in a way it has an effect on our perspective towards the minority ethnic groups within our society. The founder of the Italian school of criminology, Cesare Lombroso, claimed that criminal behaviour was a product of biological factors which included gender and race. He formed a theory and argued, certain groups of people such as white people were more ‘civilised’ and others such as ethnic minorities specifically black people were more ‘savage’. Cesare Lombroso assumed that criminality was mainly all a demonstration of ingrained traits and that the human species could be categorised as likely to become criminals purely by observing their physical attributes. For example, slave masters from the US, associated black men with crime because their physical characteristics appeared to be ‘savage’. This ridiculous biological perspective was denounced by several scholars, which included William DuBois, Frances Kellor and Johan Sellin, who explained that various factors such as environmental, social and financial, were the main causes that resulted in the development of criminal behaviour, which is completely nothing to do with race. There is a perception that black artists and actors have a less acceptable appeal in society. The media is an influential tool that massively influences the public. The images that people are shown on TV influences their outlook and ways in which they treat other people. Even though there are some good portrayals of black and ethnic minority men on TV, most of the representations of black men are stereotypical, detrimental and derogatory. Such stereotypes of black men boost the possibility that the audience will view them stereotypically. [Ford, 1997]

In his research, “Ethnicity and involvement in violence on television; nature and context of on-screen portrayals,” which was published in the Journal of Black Studies, Gunther states, that black men have been “long portrayed in mostly low-status jobs.” Other minorities which include southern Asian and Hispanic men have been unfairly judged due to their portrayal in the media. Nonetheless, the portrayal of black males on TV is really down to the kind of show it is. [Gunter,1998]. Gunter discussed that Blacks more regularly achieved equality of status with whites in situation comedies, but in crime dramas, whites were usually more authoritative, dominant, and successful.”

On a daily basis, many people hear news from various styles of communication media. Mary Beth Oliver administered a list of studies based on the portrayal of black and ethnic minority men on TV and ways in which it correlates the public's racial attitudes which were then published in the journal of African American studies. Mary Beth Oliver found that the majority of the public use the media i.e. TV as their principal source of information. During her research, she observed that young black males and ethnic minority males were by far highly likely to be depicted in the media as unlawful or engaging in acts that are deemed as socially inadmissible. The majority of studies have shown that ethnic minority males, particularly black males are more prone to be perceived as a criminal suspect than that of a white male.  [Oliver, 2003].

 Reasons as to why media patterns are misrepresented

Taking into account the lengthy unfavourable effects for black men within society, the discussion prevails: “Why is it that the media continues to show these damaging stereotypes and images?” Racism, for the most part, is usually rebuked in the media and are still inadequately represented as positive role models in mainstream media, portrayed in negative ways, and usually granted minimal roles in fiction, non-fiction and news frameworks, and so on. Why? If the producers of tv shows or movies are to create a favourable impact on people’s life’s, they must be able to confront the source of the issue. A sizeable sum of scholars presented opinions which were based on the occasional elements that may have assisted to the misrepresentations. Comprehending the roots underlying these stereotypes is a vital point towards tackling them, contrary to arguing with them more adequately. The biggest undeniable element is that the individuals culpable for the subject matter are intentionally exhibiting a falsified, prejudiced perspective. This is, without doubt, a historical fact, the media for the most part have not been considerate to black males, all through history, black boys, men and teenagers have by far too often portrayed as clown-like individuals, convicts, gang member/leaders, drug dealers or concupiscent animalistic sort of species who desire white women. That being said that adopted a form in society to uphold a second class, mediocre rank for black people, which dates from slavery all the way through to the twentieth century.  [Diuguid & Rivers, 2000]. Many scholars have stated that there are various reasons as to why the media portrayals may be misrepresented or prejudiced, despite the lack of attentiveness and the spiteful objective on the media’s content producer’s behalf.

There are some contexts, in which scholars have stated that the misrepresented depictions of black men, boys and teenagers is actually down to the viewer's preferences. Studies suggest that a large number of white audiences, as specified by one viewpoint, are likely to be more convenient with a specific variety of stereotypical images of black males, for instance, these portrayals may corroborate their personal concerns and suspicions or rather assure them that black males are lacking influence and leadership. So how does one develop a brand to a crowd (mainly white audience) prepared to pay only to view bogus misrepresentations of black males? [Tucker, 2007] [Guerrero, 1993]. Not so much direct but possibly evenly detrimental, the constraints to captivate the crowd to a primary emphasis on crime and other eye-catching subjects, that “appear to be” related with black men. These findings (based on report figures) shouldn’t really startle us, given the amount of funding that goes these outstanding stories particularly crimes that involve violence. Many of the broadcast stations profit financially and the stations require huge ratings, in order to make more sales i.e. advertisements. The majority of violent crime stories covered in the news generally consist of ethnic minority groups, specifically black men, boys or teenagers. [Kang, 2005, pp. 1550-1551]

If those responsible for producing media content are correct about what their audiences are engrossed in, the scholars propose that in various cases representations of black men are inadequate and misinterpreted because the media content producers already have an inaccurate presumption about what kind of content appeals to the audience. For example, those responsible for developing video games are likely to build a game that embodies stereotypes of the characters as younger white males, instead of the exact market statistics, that consists of a substantial proportion of black teenagers and men. A possible explanation for the portrayal patterns in the well-known video game is due to a consolidation of developer demographics, for instance, the gamer developers build players that are similar to themselves and anticipated beliefs about the game characters (e.g. gamer developers build players that exemplifies their imagined audience). [Williams et al., 2009, pp. 830-831]

An obvious and persuasive assumption about the inadequate media portrayals regards the absence of black individuals’ remarks – in distinct patterns- towards the content production. This absence of portrayals consists of, for example, a shortage of African/Caribbean TV station ownership, and an inadequate stake for black journalists, experts and producers encouraged to provide content. Possibly the greatest crucial requirement to accomplishing the ideal broadcaster is having trustworthy, authentic and credible sources contending to better narrations… competing with exclusive organisations trying to appoint various outline on the report of a subject. [Entman & Gross, 2008, p. 95] A knight foundation report demonstrates ethnic minorities and women are inadequately represented in the job roles as an editor, journalist and publishers. Although there are many companies that have been successful at bringing a variety of people for different backgrounds into the workplace, the mass media has indeed fallen behind. Demographics in 2002 reveal that more than ninety percent of journalists were white. [Lehrman, 2005]. Scholars have made mention that media content producers can gain some points, for instance, when they advocate acrimony about discussing issues that involve racial prejudice. [Herman & Chomsky, 1988]

The primary function of the media is to sell stories, either through news reporting, made-up, video games, music videos, narrations, amusement and documentaries. The patterns of misrepresentation and misjudgement examined until now is the matter that a lot of vital amplitudes of black men stories are generally untold in the media – especially ways in which the lifestyles of black teenagers and men have been troubled emotionally by greater circumstances, which includes ethnic minority financial hardship, endurance of racism and isolation from the social organisations that assist with creating more opportunity and resources. [Eschholz et al., 2002]. In a nutshell, as the media presents it, the struggling black men are simply assumed to be completely accountable for their own problems in life.  Not being aware of these bigger stories that affect black men within society, an individual is left to think that black males are culturally prone towards committing crime, broken families and underachieving.

 Conclusion

It is true that stereotypes cause a momentous number of destruction to members of the African/Caribbean community. When individuals have minimal interactions with people who are not of the same ethnicity, religion or culture as themselves this feeling is intensified. Even though the civil rights movement made great improvements, its condemned racism. This did not assist individuals to develop as people but instead inhibits understanding of what racism is and what it involves. This involves accountability in society and personal contexts. The media must be held responsible, and black men must try to continue to create black role models that will in turn help to neutralise unfavourable stereotypes within the media. This blog primary function was to discuss the correlation between criminality and ethnicity, specifically with black men. The notoriety of black men has been distinguished by assumptions about susceptibility towards crime which can be dated back to the enslavement of African people in the US and in various parts of Europe. In this blog, I have demonstrated the current perceptions of a young black male criminal has been the consequence of distinctive perceptions of crime. Black men do make up for an unreasonable number of crimes and are unjustly over-represented within the prison system. Lastly, it is worthless that people may actually believe these outrageous stereotypes because, in reality, they are utter misrepresentations of reality. Not being aware of the prejudiced attitudes content producers of media may knowingly or unknowingly presume that individuals that come from broken homes or that are struggling financially are of ethnic minorities or black people. Bias against black men is inadequate to secluded acts of racism, and so on.

   References

·         The Color of Crime: Racial Hoaxes, White Fear, Black Protectionism, Police Harassment and Other Macroaggressions is a 1998 book by American academic Katheryn Russell-Brown, (2008).

·         Tucker, l. (2007). Lockstep and Dance: Images of Black Men in Popular Culture (2007).

·         Barrios, M.I., Ortega Moheadano, F. (2012). Analysis of the Image of Immigration in Prime-Time Television Fiction. Communication & Society 25(2), 7-28.

·         Gunter, Barrie Ethnicity and involvement in violence on television; nature and context of on-screen portrayals. Journal of Black Studies v28, n6 (July, 1998):683, 21

·         Lombroso, G. and Lombroso, C. (2011). Criminal man. Minneapolis, MN: Filiquarian Publishing.

·         DuBois, W., Gates, H. and Moses, W. (2007). Black folk. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

·         Kellor, F. (1901). Experimental sociology. Descriptive and analytical. New York: The Macmillan company; London, Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

·         Sellin, J. (1976). Slavery and the penal system. New York: Elsevier.

·         Ford, T. (1997). Effects of Stereotypical Television Portrayals of African Americans On Person Perception. Social Psychology Quarterly, 60(3), 266-275.

·         Gunter, Barrie Ethnicity and involvement in violence on television; nature and context of on-screen portrayals. Journal of Black Studies v28, n6 (July, 1998):683, 21

·         Oliver, M. (2003). African American Men as “Criminal and Dangerous”: Implications of Media Portrayals of Crime on the “Criminalization” of African American Men. Journal of African American Studies, 7(2), 3-18. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41819017

·         Diuguid, L., & Rivers, A. (2000). The Media and the Black Response. The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 569 (1), 120-134.

·         Tucker, L. (2007). Lockstep and Dance: Images of Black Men in Popular Culture. University Press of Mississippi.

·         Guerrero, E. (1993). Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

·         Kang, J. (2005). Trojan Horses of Race. Harvard Law Review, 118, 1489-1593.

·         Williams, D., Martins, N., Consalvo, M., & Ivory, J. D. (2009). The Virtual Census: Representations of Gender, Race and Age in Video Games. New Media Society, 11 (5), 815-834.

·         Entman, R. M., & Gross, K. A. (2008). Race to Judgement: Stereotyping Media and Criminal Defendants. Law and Contemporary Problems, 71 (93), 94-133.

·         Lehrman, S. (2005). News in a New America. Miami: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

·         Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (1988). Manufacturing Consent. New York, New York: Pantheon.

·         Eschholz, S., Bufkin, J., & Long, J. (2002). Symbolic Reality Bites: Women and Racial/Ethnic Minorities in Modern Film. Sociological Spectrum, 22, 299-334.