We Are Not What Media Says

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Media has become a major part of our lives. Indeed it has shape the way we perceive other races. Minority races such as Latinos, African American, Native American and Asians are being misrepresented in media. Media has a huge impact on race, by presenting race stereotypes media is telling us that certain races behave a particular way which shapes the way society sees them and in many times the way they see themselves. We tend to believe everything media says about us and other races without questioning if it is actually true.
Nowadays, it has been difficult to notice the harm media is doing to society. It has become too normal that we are already used to deny the reality. I have read several readings that have opened my eyes to the reality of media; A Crash Course on Hollywood’s Latino Imagery by Charles Ramirez Berg, (Re)presenting: Muslims on North American television by Amir Hussain, True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu. These readings include an important message about minority races, which I believe society should be aware of. All of the readings that I previously mentioned have something in common, they all examine the way race is portrayed in media. Moreover, they also include how media can potentially shape our perceptions of who we are and who others are. Our young community are the ones that are being most affected by media. Children receive messages in T.V shows, cartoons, movies and books of how different races supposedly are, and they immediately start assuming that those messages are true and continue growing up with that ideology.
I am sure that we all have faced this stereotypes at some point indeed we may even been applying this stereotypes in our life. I have bee...

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... will see that they are not what medias says. There is an urgent need to realize that all media is trying to do is make money and that includes over exaggerating with race stereotypes.

Works Cited

Berg, Charles Ramírez. "A Crash Course on Hollywood's Latino Imagery." Latino images in film stereotypes, subversion, resistance. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002. 66-86. Print.
Eclipse. Dir. David Slade. Perf. Robert Pattinson,Kristen Steward, Taylor Lautner. Summit Entertainment, 2010. DVD.
Hussain, Amir. “(Re) Presenting: Muslims on North American Television.” (2009): n.
Page. Web.
Liu, Ken. "The Paper Menagerie." Fantasy and Science Fiction 2011: 64-76. Print.
"Mypods & Boomsticks ." The Simpsons . FOX Broadcasting Company. KBBL, Springfield. 4 Mar. 2013. Television.
"Study Claims Latinos Are Most Affected By Ethnic Stereotypes." LATINA. N.p., n.d. Web.

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