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Racism In Media

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The media distorts our perception of race. Through television, newspaper, radio and the internet, the media is able to influence the minds of such a wide audience. With the increasing usage of the internet, media in our society today is a platform where anyone is free to express their thoughts and feelings unchecked. Unfortunately, while this does come with its benefits, with the growing power of media, racism against minority groups is easily found everywhere whether it is obvious, or subtle. Racism in our media must come to an end.

In our society, racism has always been an issue. "Even in New Zealand?" some may ask, because we are famous for being culturally open. In New Zealand, the largest racial minority group are the Maori who are historically …show more content…
Because of this, almost everyone is aware of what is going on in their media, and how much racism is included within it. The majority of the victims in America's media are Latinos, Hispanics and African Americans. Although they are not indigenous to America, combined they are a major part in the country's population, being at 30 percent of the whole population. Still, being a minority of a country leads to a higher likelihood of being victimised on the media. A study in Los Angeles have found that "blacks" are only 21 percent of those arrested; however, they were 37 percent of the televised suspects in local news. Another is that only 10 percent of crime reports consisted of blacks attacking whites, but were 42 percent of the criminal cases shown on television. The facts are just too obvious to ignore the different treatment of major and minor races. These are the reasons why Africans are still labelled 'dangerous' in society, and we are in the 2010's. The imbalanced bias on "white" people does not give the viewers a chance of looking back, and realising the control stereotypes have on their mindset. Other studies also showed that African American, Latino and Hispanic criminal suspects would be much more likely to be left unnamed, instead emphasising their race – much like the way Maori are publicised in some NZ media. Again, these kinds of subtle racism in the media is a danger for …show more content…
During the documentary, Kondabolu says, "After a while, you would watch The Simpsons on a Sunday and get a sense of how you would be made fun of at school on Monday, based on what Apu did in the latest episode." Apu is the most iconic representation of South Asian immigrants on television, and so many viewers of the show do not realise that this animation caricature is a stereotype, until it is too late. While some could say that Apu is a character that was able to bring Indian culture into international media, it does not change people's stereotypical views on South Asian descent immigrants. Kondabolu and his many friends who had also experienced the same problems continue to talk about the ways Apu impacted their social life. Apu influenced the way people behaved towards South Asians in general off media as well, most situations being young children mimicking the Indian accent with Apu's most popular line, "Thank you, come again, come back another time." Kids who say these phrases often do not realise the inappropriateness of their behaviour. The trouble is that this subtle racism that had been presented on media as a joke, is now the only way people saw Indian immigrants – Indian immigrant equals convenience store owner. The truth is, the so-called "Indian" accent is not even authentic – Kondabolu called it "A white guy doing an impression of a white guy

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