Mass media have played
and will continue to play a crucial role in the way white americans
perceive african americans and other minorities in general. The media
has created meaning about race and ethnicity, and played an important
role in shaping the way we understand race and ethnicity as part of
our identity, our history, race has become an institutional part of
American society and, our everyday lives. race has become a way of
classifying individuals and groups on the basis of physical
characteristics, particularly one’s skin color. Ethnicity
delineates one’s place of origin or nationality, one’s cultural
background or ancestry, one’s language and by extension, one’s
belief system. Moreover, As a result of the overwhelming media focus
on crime, drug use, gang violence, and other forms of anti-social
behavior particularly among African-Americans. However, before
attempting to understand racism and mass media, one must understand
the history of racism. In relation to class discourse David
Goldberg's and hid concept of the racist culture attempts to argues
that racial discourse may be interpreted as aversive, academic,
scientific, legalistic, bureaucratic, economic, cultural, linguistic,
religion, mythical, or ideological. He also stresses that racialized
discourse and racist expressions towards African-American have been
widespread. To make a connection in regard of how the media creates
racism, Bonilla argue that racial grammar is more presented through
the media or movies and is less involved with the focus of social
construction, therefore it would still influence many to behave in a
particular way or includes racism commentary. As a result race is
socially developed, accordingly racialization and generalization of
particular group of people is the results of todays period and race
matters exist in different places and at different times under widely
varying conditions. Media have divided the working class and
stereotyped young African-American males as gangsters or drug
dealers. As a result of such treatment, the media have crushed
youths' prospects for future employment and advancement. The media
have focused on the negative aspects of the black community in terms
of explaining that black youth are normally engaged in drug use,
criminal activity, welfare abuse.
In the year of 1997 a 14 years old Reena Virk, a girl of south asian origin, was brutally murdered in a suburb of Victoria, british columbia. The victim was first beaten by a group of seven white girls and one white male between the ages of 14-16. Rena was accused of stealing one of the girls boyfriends and spreading rumours. During the beating Rena reportedly cried out “i am sorry” however, the group of people smashed her head against a tree and kicked her to the point where she became unconscious, then they allegedly dragged her body into the river forcibly drowned her. Sadly, The murder of the 14 years old was singled out by the news media and heavily reported in the local national, and international press, the media's initial framing of the murder focused largely on “girl on girl” violence. The issue of racism, sexism, pressures of assimilation, and the social construction of Reena Virk as an outcast were rarely addressed. When the media addressed the victim it was always in the language of appearance that she weighed 200 pounds and was five feet, eight inches tall. According to media accounts, her heaviness and height precluded her from being accepted. The assumptions regarding the validity of normative standards of beauty and appearance were significantly absent in all accounts of the story. Rather they used other definition to cover stories of racialized immigrant and refugees communities, Reena's difference was underscored and inferiorized. Therefore, Bonilla furnish us with different samples of racial grammar, for example, “the beauty and the beast” TV hosts such as Nancy grace always seem to describe a missing or murdered young white women as "beautiful'' similar to other crimes shows, in cases dealing with the disappearance or murder of young white women, the adjective is often there, but when the victim is a black or latino women, and when discusses, the adjective is not there.
for more related sources click the links below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XmfaeZ0muUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk5hgJElSII
https://www.change.org/p/prosecute-the-killer-of-our-son-17-year-old-trayvon-martin
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/18/justice/florida-teen-shooting-details/
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