Let’s focus on the press and media and their portrayal of the news. Do you think they accurately reflect reality? Sadly local news and media filter the types of stories they use and they tend to concentrate more on issues and subjects that allow their viewers to perceive those issues as more important than others. By looking mainly into the crime and violence aspects of local news we can see that Blacks are over-represented in a negative way and that whites are portrayed as the victims. This information that is shown in crime news forces the stereotype that all Blacks are criminals. This creates a vicious cycle because those stereotypes will never be broken.
Take a look at this article by The Washington Post they use a nice graph to explain the amount of crimes that are perceived by Whites to be done by Black people and what the actual percentage is.
Click here to read the article related to the graph above:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/01/whites-greatly-overestimate-the-share-of-crimes-committed-by-black-people/
These types of stereotypes keep filling the minds of viewers to assume that all Blacks are criminals; the media is priming people into believing that this stereotype is true. Priming according to an article called, Who is the Victim here?:The psychological effects of overrepresenting White victims and Black perpetrators on television news written by Travis Dixon, is explained by how we activate schemas in one circumstance that lead to the use of schemas in subsequent judgments for other circumstances. Much like in my previous post about the movie Crash, the Black actors portrayed criminals, thus further pushing the stereotype on viewers. Many times in media we can clearly see that Blacks are portrayed in a negative way, which allows for other races to assume things about them before even getting to know them.
In New York, they have the Stop and Frisk campaign, which in a short definition, targets Black and Latino communities by racially profiling them into illegal stops and questioning their privacy concerns. Police officers can just walk up to a Black person and question them without having any reason for the questioning.
Watch the video below about Stop and Frisk
This secretly recorded video gives great insight into how the Stop and Frisk campaign plays out. The police officers are forced to do these stops, but at what point do they say enough is enough? They are taking the rights away from the people they stop unnecessarily and they are making them fearful of Police officers.
Click here to learn more about the NYPD’s Stop and Frisk Campaign: http://www.nyclu.org/issues/racial-justice/stop-and-frisk-practices
How’s this for a cause and effect?
Cause: the perpetual stereotypes of blacks shown on local media
Effect: what is going on in New York with the New York City Police officers racially profiling Blacks and Latinos.
Due to the exposure of Blacks as perpetrators in crime, we are primed for the stereotypes for the subsequent judgment of Black people. If Blacks were portrayed differently in the media than there may be a chance that stereotypes that negatively portray them will cease to exist. Others buying into the stereotypes of Blacks and Latinos would become a thing of the past.
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