Alizé Bland

Critical Thinking

Dr. A. McEvoy

12/2018
Homework 5

Several factors relating to the general antagonism toward black males; exaggerated views
of, expectations of, and tolerance for race-based socio-economic disparities; exaggerated views
related to criminality and violence; lack of identification with or sympathy for black males;
reduced attention to structural and other big-picture factors; public support for punitive
approaches to problems. Based on the “Media Representation and Impact on the Lives of Black
Men and Boys” reading, the views of black men and boys are distorted because of misinterpreted
views in television, video games, news, and music. Some of the negative distorted portrayals
associate black men and boys as thugs, criminals, fools, having been in disadvantaged situations
that are demoralizing, along with casting them under the unemployment status and living in
poverty-stricken places.

Media portrayals of black men continue to be distorted because of the missing historical
stories that are largely ignored by the media that antecedents of black economic disadvantage
and persistence of anti-black male bias. All of which results in the underrepresentation overall in
black communities, negative associations that are exaggerated, positive associations that are
limited, the “problem” frame pattern in which black males in society are hard to deal with.

Malcolm X explains that the media is manipulative and agenda for wanting viewers to
believe whatever they are trying to put out there. The media shows that it is easier for viewers to
believe that the accused is the victim and the victim is the cause. It means that whenever you try
to do the right thing, you are always wrong in the case of Laquan McDonald, 17 years old, who
was shot 16 times by law enforcement officers only to have the crime covered up by the mayor
and the law enforcement agency. They tried to say that he was in the wrong; for attempting to
avoid police officers who wanted to stop and frisk him after being followed for several blocks.
That he seemed suspicious because of the neighborhood, he walked through, the time of day, and
the color of his skin. When it came down to the officers being tried in court, the officer who
pulled the trigger was sentenced to second-degree murder, and the other officers had been let off
with a warning. The mayor’s office had paid off Laquan’s family so that the officers would get a
less severe sentence. The media put it out there that they were the victims, that they tried to
protect themselves from Laquan because he was carrying a knife and apprehending arrest.
 Implicit racial bias is the attitudes or stereotypes that affect an individual's understanding,
actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. It is a problem because it allows for certain
things to be assumed about a certain race or a certain person. This can be a problem because the
person who assumes the worst without having known or experienced what the other person has
experienced based on learned associations between various qualities and social categories can
hurt the individual or the group. It is also a problem because it can classify certain groups of
people in a race as criminal, thugs, gangster, maids, fools, abusive, failure, guilty, racist, fascist,
dirty, savages, stupid, ghetto, you people, incompetent, animals, uneducated, shady, sketchy
along with many other harmful stereotypical ideas, slurs and racially-motivated hate crimes.

The people in a community like Mansfield may misinterpret media images and words
about inner-city kids because they have less real world experience. In a city you are more likely
to be exposed to certain things that someone in a rural area might not experience. Such as a huge
population, multicultural people and places, billboards, skyscrapers, restaurants. All of this might
affect the perception of people in Mansfield because they will more likely have some kind of
implicit racial bias towards those who come from the city or other places because of what the
media portrayed; such as black males who commit armed robbery, distribute drugs, rape, assault,
fights, homicide and youth crime. People from rural communities like Mansfield will have some
type of opinion about blacks because they don’t want what happens in the city to happen in their
community.

Privilege is a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a

particular person or group of people. Oppression is the state of being subject to unjust treatment
or control. Power in terms of race is the ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the
course of certain events. Asian Americans have privilege in society other than whites because
they are viewed as highly intelligent people who can hold down a job, start businesses and work
their way up from nothing. They have better educational opportunities and job opportunities.
Compared to blacks and latinos, asian americans have more privileges because their skin is of a
lighter complexion.

“Colorblindness” is not the solution to dealing with race because it is not addressing the
underlying issue of racial inequality. Rather than trying to deal with the problem and and ask
honest questions of how color blindness is affecting non-white people; White people choose to
ignore it and see it as an illusion where everyone is treated the same, having the same treatment
with law enforcement, the legal field, health care, and job opportunities.

Whites began to protest in the “tea party” because they felt they were losing their small sense
political power; claiming that they “want their country back” because a black man was elected
president and taxes were too high. They did not want to pay the same taxes that non-whites had
to pay, stating that they wanted to go back to a simpler time; before blacks had rights and equal
opportunities. Whites used this protest to manipulate the government to gain momentum over
non-whites by acting in their selfish interest to get their way.