The American media portrays African-Americans to be criminals frequently, creating a disconnect between whites and blacks. With minimal knowledge on the subject, many Americans believe that African-Americans commit crimes at the highest rate of any group in the country. This is usually based on the stories that they’ve seen reported by the media. Determining the crime rates of different groups is an arduous task because of how difficult it is to pinpoint exactly how many crimes are committed and whether certain biases impacted the arrest rate. The National Report consistently reports black arrest rates to be higher than white arrest rates. Even so, this could be affected by police bias against African-Americans. Trying to account for these
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While the media isn’t overtly racist, it has subtle yet impactful methods to keep white people in socioeconomic control. For the Journal of African American Men, Chris Miller (1998) references a film called Hallelujah (1929). The movie absurdly glamorizes working on a plantation as it shows African-Americans singing and smiling while they picked the cotton. Later in the film, the central African-American character named Zeke went into town to sell the year’s crop. Being in town provided too many temptations for Zeke, who succumbed to gambling and drinking which resulted in the death of his brother. As Miller (1998) states, “The message is clear: black people only get into trouble when they fail to stay in their place.” While one may believe these representations are a thing of a past, they are still prevalent in recent films. Today, Miller (1998) writes that “Hollywood gives black audiences two extremes of bad and good, of sexually threatening and sterile.” These representations encourage the categorization of black people into labels that are not only misrepresentative, but also incredibly negative. Hollywood gives America the idea that African-Americans cannot be functional, responsible …show more content…
When a student is aware of stereotypes that surrounds his/her group, it could negatively affect test scores. This is based on a concept called stereotype threat. When a black student is surrounded by mostly white students, the black student might become more aware of the negative stereotypes that are associated with black people. This could increase fear of possibly validating this stereotype in the eyes of other students and make the test-taking process more stressful. It could also cause the student to believe that certain negative stereotypes are true, and consequently conform to what he/she believes is expected to happen. This is shown in the study conducted by Steele and Aronson (1995). In this study, white and black Americans from elite universities were given the Graduate Record Examination, an exam designed to test the performance ability of a university student. Steele and Aronson informed some students that the test was indicative of intelligence level, and told other students that it wasn’t. This attempts to have the black students believe that any stereotypes surrounding African-American intelligence were irrelevant to the results of the exam. The black students who were told that the exam wasn’t evaluating intelligence performed as well as the white students, and significantly better than the black students who were told that it was evaluating intelligence.
While the media isn’t overtly racist, it has subtle yet impactful methods to keep white people in socioeconomic control. For the Journal of African American Men, Chris Miller (1998) references a film called Hallelujah (1929). The movie absurdly glamorizes working on a plantation as it shows African-Americans singing and smiling while they picked the cotton. Later in the film, the central African-American character named Zeke went into town to sell the year’s crop. Being in town provided too many temptations for Zeke, who succumbed to gambling and drinking which resulted in the death of his brother. As Miller (1998) states, “The message is clear: black people only get into trouble when they fail to stay in their place.” While one may believe these representations are a thing of a past, they are still prevalent in recent films. Today, Miller (1998) writes that “Hollywood gives black audiences two extremes of bad and good, of sexually threatening and sterile.” These representations encourage the categorization of black people into labels that are not only misrepresentative, but also incredibly negative. Hollywood gives America the idea that African-Americans cannot be functional, responsible …show more content…
When a student is aware of stereotypes that surrounds his/her group, it could negatively affect test scores. This is based on a concept called stereotype threat. When a black student is surrounded by mostly white students, the black student might become more aware of the negative stereotypes that are associated with black people. This could increase fear of possibly validating this stereotype in the eyes of other students and make the test-taking process more stressful. It could also cause the student to believe that certain negative stereotypes are true, and consequently conform to what he/she believes is expected to happen. This is shown in the study conducted by Steele and Aronson (1995). In this study, white and black Americans from elite universities were given the Graduate Record Examination, an exam designed to test the performance ability of a university student. Steele and Aronson informed some students that the test was indicative of intelligence level, and told other students that it wasn’t. This attempts to have the black students believe that any stereotypes surrounding African-American intelligence were irrelevant to the results of the exam. The black students who were told that the exam wasn’t evaluating intelligence performed as well as the white students, and significantly better than the black students who were told that it was evaluating intelligence.