Stereotyping in the news media might be even more dangerous than stereotyping in fictional television shows and movies since most people believe anything they hear or see on their favorite news network. As I read the first chapter in this weeks readings, I was reminded of my grandparents. They are good people for all intents and purposes, but they watch so much Fox news that they have a very skewed view of reality. Because of the agenda set by Fox news and the way they frame stories, my grandparents have crazy ideas about the world, such as President Obama being the anti-christ and Laredo, TX being so dangerous that any white person who sets foot there is highly likely to be kidnapped or murdered. They completely saturate themselves in Fox news, television set blaring all hours of the day, and are easily worked up into a frenzy by the nonstop coverage of issues that more than likely are not as important as the amount of coverage they get might make them appear. The last time I saw my grandparents before I moved to Texas, my grandfather tried to tell me that what the United States government did to Native Americans was not really genocide, and that the Native American tribes would have killed each other off anyway, so what does it matter? <sigh> He is a good man who would (and has so many times throughout his life) do anything to help anybody regardless of ethnicity, but he has been programed by Fox news, and the books he reads by the pundits featured on the channel, to believe crazy ideas. I've given up trying to argue with him, it does no good.

"Whites have become so used to seeing blacks in stories about crime that they assume blacks to be perpetrators of crimes covered on television even when those stories lack photographs or descriptions of the suspect" (91) As I read this passage, I was reminded of a news story I read on Yahoo news. A ten-year-old girl was kidnapped from her home and then released ten hours later. Police did not issue a description of the two suspects other than saying that they were both male and one was approximately 18-years-old. What I found surprising before this weeks reading and very relevant were the comments following the article, many of which focused on the lack of description of the subjects on their possible race, as well as why the police and the media did not mention the suspects' race.

Link to the article:

http://news.yahoo.com/girl-found-2-sought-abduction-la-home-082709593.html

Some comments I found particularly interesting and racist:

"If he was black they would have said it before the story came out. I'm just glad he is OK, Thank God"

"Believe it or not....some Cities don't release that information because it is considered to be a racist thing if you mention it. They consider it "racial profiling." That is a policy. Unbelievable, but true."

"If it were a WHITE man they would have said white man, that's allowed. But what I don't understand if its a black, hispanic or Asian person they are looking for, PC be damned and just say so, wouldn't it be easier if the publci got a real description of the perps"

"If they don't mention it, assume black."

"9 times out of 10 when they don't provide a race it's usually black. They always tell you when it's a white person. They very, very rarely mention race anymore when it's anything other than a white person because they don't want to be "racist". In my opinion, if people don't want their race to be associated with crime then maybe they should take steps to stop their race from committing so many crimes."

"They wont say because they dont want to insult the white community either. Cmon, what minority wakes up that early to kidnap anybody? Only white people wake up that early"

That is no where near all of them, but you get the idea. I found it interesting that not only did so many people assume that the kidnappers were black or another minority, they also seemed to believe in a conspiracy in the media to cover up the race of minority criminals in a version of politically correctness run amok. I am amazed that so many people have such a skewed version of reality.

I found the remaining chapters in this section to be interesting, but I do wish there were more current examples, not because I think things have changed much but because I think there are so many modern examples that would be interesting to analyze. What is most compelling to me about these chapters is that racism in the news media has not changed much outside of the terminology used. Black people are still "lazy" and "criminals," Native Americans are still "drunks" and "savages," Hispanics are all "illegal Immigrants" and "Mexicans," and Asians are "docile," "super intelligent," and "obedient." People are still portrayed with many of the same stereotypes that existed 100+ years ago, but in slightly different ways. Will racial prejudice ever fade away? After all of the reading we have done for this class, I am not very optimistic. I don't really know what to do about it other than continuing to stand up to bigotry and prejudice when I encounter it, but I just don't have time to talk to 300 million Americans.