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Racism in the media
Systemic racism in media
Racism in the media in America
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Jeffery Reid
10/27/2014
Intro to African American Studies
Dr. Woods
Analysis on the NAACP Racist Advertisement Protest
In the past, advertising was extremely racist and was almost accepted as the norm by the majority of Americans. Ads promoting everything from household cleaning products to breakfast cereal were laced with negative overtones that were targeted at the African American community. Although some ads were sneakily provocative, others were almost astonishingly shameless having the audacity to not only deface the image of the black man and women but also named their product after the very word that has tormented African Americans for generations.
Products such as the infamous “Nigger liquid stove polish” and “Nigger Head Shrimp”
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are just a few examples of how the African American image was defaced and prostituted for the white mans profit. Both products were indisputably used to humiliate African Americans though the latter vandalized the features that we as Blacks take pride in, by darkening the skin and giving unusually large lips to the man used in the advertisement. Stereotypes like those helped market American merchandise for more than a century, and the history of their use and abuse offers a strange story of race relations in this country. Although there are many more products and advertisements like them, these two are of a select few that garnered national attention due to the efforts of the NAACP and its leaders. During the 1940s, “under continual pressure by the NAACP, the Aughinbaugh canning company of Biloxi Mississippi, changed the name of its oysters from “Nigger Head Brand” to “Negro Head Brand.” After reading the assigned documents that focused on the NAACP protest of these products I was left to question just why would these companies degrade themselves and release such vile images to the general public?
Throughout this document are press releases letters that are exchanged by NAACP leaders such as former Southeast Regional Secretary Ruby Hurley and the Department of Public Relations. From these documents I have gathered that during this point in time mainstream America had still not accepted historical racism as apart of everyday life. If a company can simply sell a product called “Nigger Head Shrimp” to the general public without little resistance, attention, or moral hesitation, then evidently the public has yet to let go of their racist views towards African Americans. This acceptance has carried over to the present as well as products like Aunt Jemima’s Syrup and Uncle Ben’s Rice. I don’t know which screams racial equality more a product made in the image of an ex-slave, who lived on a Louisiana plantation making flapjacks or a “simple, cheerful, and ambition-free butler and cook.” Unknown to most of us today, these two still remain as some of America’s most beloved racist spoke-characters in ads all across the country. This reasoning can also be the cause of why it took the intervention of a national NAACP protest for mainstream America to become aware of this injustice.
After reading these documents I have come to the conclusion that these ads and products are not results of a simple misunderstanding they were conceived due to the fact that Africans haven’t fully been embraced into post slavery America. This in turn created an acceptance and justification of these actions allowing the general populous to become numb to these
immoralities. Unfortunately this in turn has lead me to believe that mainstream American society continues to be blinded by this racially insensitive form of advertisement due to its continued use. Whether celebrities partaking in blackface, or politicians using small racial overtones in their political ads, this practice is a never-ending cycle that is thought to have ended with an investigation and an apology until the next case. This cycle has to end; we as Americans allow the images of what we pride ourselves be defaced for ones entertainment or profit. Though we live a few generations removed from slavery and the civil rights movement the pain and suffering of our ancestors can still be felt today. We must ensure that the sacrifices of those individuals did not go to waste by refraining from turning a blind eye to this injustice Work Cited "25 Most Racist Advertisements and Commercials." Ad Savvy RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2014. Minato, Charlie. "10 Recent Racist Ads That Companies Wish You Would Forget." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 07 June 2012. Web. 25 Oct. 2014. "NAACP: 100 Years of History." NAACP. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2014.
Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1). Flashing forward a few years later past the days of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, several, but not all in the younger generation see the members of the black and white race as equal and find it hard to fathom that only a few years ago the atmosphere surrounding racial relations was anything but pleasant.
America have a long history of black’s relationship with their fellow white citizens, there’s two authors that dedicated their whole life, fighting for equality for blacks in America. – Audre Lorde and Brent Staples. They both devoted their professional careers outlying their opinions, on how to reduce the hatred towards blacks and other colored. From their contributions they left a huge impression on many academic studies and Americans about the lack of awareness, on race issues that are towards African-American. There’s been countless, of critical evidence that these two prolific writers will always be synonymous to writing great academic papers, after reading and learning about their life experience, from their memoirs.
Advertisements are one of many things that Americans cannot get away from. Every American sees an average of 3,000 advertisements a day; whether it’s on the television, radio, while surfing the internet, or while driving around town. Advertisements try to get consumers to buy their products by getting their attention. Most advertisements don’t have anything to do with the product itself. Every company has a different way of getting the public’s attention, but every advertisement has the same goal - to sell the product. Every advertisement tries to appeal to the audience by using ethos, pathos, and logos, while also focusing on who their audience is and the purpose of the ad. An example of this is a Charmin commercial where there is a bear who gets excited when he gets to use the toilet paper because it is so soft.
Both 20th century examples of repugnant racism in the United States, the provocative stories of Richard Wright and Malcolm “Malcolm X” Little portray the same blatant disregard for African-Americans as less than human: Richard Wright as an African-American who grew up in the extremely racially tense Southern United States, and Malcolm X an Afro-American who grew up in the Northeastern section of the U.S., faced segregation and discrimination, and resorted to a life of crime for money and other pleasures. Both of their situations, direct effects of the prejudice-injected Jim Crow Era, changed each of them to become leaders in their own respects. Both of these men’s experiences and input on
Based on the title of the book alone, it is easy to say that racism is one of the many social issues this book will address. Unlike the normal racism of Caucasians versus African Americans, this book focuses on racism of the black elite versus African Americans, also known as colorism. Colorism is the discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically by others of the same racial group. Margo Jefferson says, “Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty” (p. 1).
The media affects the way people view all different races as well, not only gender. One passage that stood out was when Omi exclaimed, “all racial minorities were represented as “less than human.”In the 1930 's African and white children were split into different schools. In this era white Americans disfavored against African-Americans because they did not have the same skin color. For this reason, African-Americans endured mistreatment and misunderstanding. This primarily affected African-American children because their education system was different from the white children. Negro schools had many restrictions such as reading being restricted and discarded to the libraries of the white community. Based on the attention to this advertisement through the view of the race, I read that African-American children were falsely described in the 1930’s because they lack a proper education system and they were not socially equal. Education affected the child’s self-esteem and self-worth “Education of the Negro Child” about sixty-five percent of African-American children lived life classified as retarded. Those children had trouble developing self-esteem and self-worth because the society around them saw them as uneducated and unintelligent. The concept of “veneer” means to cover something to improve its appearance. The advertisement implied that the African-American children showed excitement when one child covers
Fannie Lou Hamer and Malcolm X, like most civil rights activists, were exposed to the horrors of racism on a daily basis. These two leaders in particular, recognized a recurring theme of conscious oppression of Black Americans on the part of white Americans and identified the ways in which the “dominant” social group benefited from such oppression. Fannie Lou Hamer’s experience sharecropping and within the justice system helped her to develop an ideology of civil rights that centered on the empowerment of Black Americans. When Hamer was six years old the owner of the plantation on which her family lived and worked encouraged her to pick cotton. Making it seem like a game or challenge, the owner offered her a reward of food, knowing that the young girl was going hungry as a result of the limited amount of food he supplied to her family. Just like that, Hamer was tricked into picking cotton to earn minimal rewards.2 This anecdote from her life parallels the struggle of many sharecroppers at the time. Released from slavery, Black me...
Although an effort is made in connecting with the blacks, the idea behind it is not in understanding the blacks and their culture but rather is an exploitative one. It had an adverse impact on the black community by degrading their esteem and status in the community. For many years, the political process also had been influenced by the same ideas and had ignored the black population in the political process (Belk, 1990). America loves appropriating black culture — even when black people themselves, at times, don’t receive much love from America.
During the 2004 NAACP awards ceremony at Washington, D.C., in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education , Bill Cosby delivers a speech, which would be subsequently referred to as “The Pound Cake Speech, criticizing the lifestyle and lack of parenting in the African–American community. The speech has been severely criticized for it is delivery and topics expressed within it. Author Jerome Corsi notes, "Cosby was attacked both for his flippant tone and because his argument appeared to 'blame the victim' for the racial inequality and racial injustice suffered." The purpose of this essay is to examine why the use of comedy, partitioning of listeners, and scapegoating of African-American parents, as the sole cause of African-American social problems, lead to the poor reception of Cosby's speech.
Institutionalized racism has been a major factor in how the United States operate huge corporations today. This type of racism is found in many places which include schools, court of laws, job places and governmental organizations. Institutionalized racism affects many factors in the lives of African Americans, including the way they may interact with white individuals. In the book “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Stories” ZZ Packer uses her short stories to emphasize the how institutionalized racism plays in the lives of the characters in her stories. Almost all her characters experience the effects of institutionalized racism, and therefore change how they view their lives to adapt. Because institutionalized racism is a factor that affects how
Racism and discrimination continue to be a prevalent problem in American society. Although minorities have made significant strides toward autonomy and equality, the images in media, specifically television, continue to misrepresent and manipulate the public opinion of blacks. It is no longer a blatant practice upheld by the law and celebrated with hangings and beatings, but instead it is a subtle practice that is perceived in the entertainment and media industries. Whether it’s appearing in disparaging roles or being negatively portrayed in newscasts, blacks continue to be the victims of an industry that relies on old ideas to appeal to the majority. The viscous cycle that is the unconscious racism of the media continues to not only be detrimental to the white consumers, who base what they know about blacks on what is represented on television, but also the black consumers, who grow up with a false sense of identity.
As a result a presentation of what was attractive and not attractive emerged, giving white people more power. White people were looked at as being superior once again, even though slavery was not present in society. Oppression continued due to the emerging images post slavery due to the potential for slaves to gain economic power. White people used these coon images as a safeguard for their power. Another example of a coon image was one that presented fried chicken as a black person's food. In this image and advertisement there is a black persons face with an enlarged mouth that has, “Coon Chicken,” written on the teeth. This advertisement was the start of the fried chicken capital. Fried chicken was then associated with black people. It was a mechanism of entrepreneurship that black people used to gain economic standing. Along the rails of the railroads is where racial progress began, however within the advertisements to these business was were racial and class oppression was occurring as well. Coon images were used to show white dominance over black people and therefore oppressed the black race as a
African American Review 32.2 (1998): 293-303. JSTOR.com - "The New York Times" Web. The Web. The Web. 11 April 2012.
Essay 1: WRITE A COHERENT ESSAY IN WHICH YOU ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE USE OF BLACK ICONIC IMAGES (AND OTHER ETHNIC IMAGES) TO SELL PRODUCTS AS THE ECONOMY OF MASS CONSUMPTION EXPANDED IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURY. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO INCLUDE IMAGES IN YOUR PAPER! During the 19th and 20th century, America –mostly white collar, middle class Americans- saw a great increase in salaries and a huge rise in mass production which paved the way for the modern American consumerism which we know today. The advertising scene saw a dramatic boost during that period and tried to latch on to this growing pool of emerging consumers. Although only limited to print, advertising during this pivotal period showed panache and reflected American society and popular culture.
Most of the time, when an advertisement is made to be racist on purpose, it is done so for the sake of humor. However, to the people that are affected by racial discrimination, it remains incredibly hard to view these advertisements in a humorous way. A source from Desginmatic.com says, “The idea that racism in advertising can be of good may be laughable. However, there’s a major difference between the multicultural marketing practices of the 1920s and today’s racial stereotyping in advertising” (desginmantic.com). This is basically saying that although today’s advertisers believe that we still live in a culture in which advertisements like these are actually acceptable and humorous, they need to realize that we do not and that these advertisements are not only unamusing, but they are extremely insulting as well. The effects of racism are often one