Muted group theory is a critical theory concerning certain groups of people who remain powerless compared to others (Wall & Gannon-Leary, 1999). Edwin Ardener, a British anthropologist, introduced the concept. His noted contributions in anthropology are the studies on gender; he found that the studies made by many ethnographers in the society were generalized to the male population only. The voices of women and other unheard have been ignored and muted. According to Ardener (1975), many ethnographers claimed to understand society, but only asserted this claim based on findings derived from studies of the male population. Along with Ardener, Cheris Kramarae is the main theorist behind muted group theory for communication studies. She was a former …show more content…
This leaves women at a disadvantage because they are always using a man’s words to describe female thoughts and feelings. Kramarae believes that “women perceive the world differently from men because of women’s and men’s different experience and activities rooted in the division of labor” (Griffin, 2011). Therefore, she sees it as a disadvantage for women to use man’s words. She also believes that men and women are vastly different and thus will view the world differently from men. Kramarae believes that communication between men and women is not on an even level, which makes it easier for men to communicate over women. Though this theory is derived from feminist theories, it can reach a much broader audience when applied to the proper scope. Mark Orbe is a communication theorist who has extended Kramarae’s work in muted group theory to African-American males and other groups made up of various cultures. In his articles, “African-American communication research: Toward a deeper understanding of interethnic communication” (1995) and “Constructing co-cultural theory: An explication of culture, power, and communication” (1998), Orbe produced two important extensions of muted group …show more content…
Orbe (1995) identified 26 different acts that members of muted groups choose from when dealing with the structures and messages of the dominant society; he explains that an act is chosen depending on previous experiences, context, the individual’s abilities, and perceived costs and rewards. Orbe focuses on how different under represented group members negotiate their muted group status. According to his work (1998), this constant negotiation includes remaining muted, but also identifies the diverse ways in which individuals gain voice in different
It is commonly thought that one has to struggle in order to be black. Black people tend to have a stronger sense of group identification than any other racial group in the United States. The question is whether or not this is helpful or detrimental to the black population. In “Promoting Black (Social) Identity” Laura Papish criticizes Tommie Shelby’s We Who Are Dark. Shelby argues that the black population’s sense of group identity is vital to furthering their collective political agenda. Shelby believes that best way to make sure that their political ideologies are cohesive is for black individuals to have a “thick conception of black identity” (Papish 2).” Having a thick sense of black identity calls for “ African Americans think of themselves as and act as a ‘nation’ constituted not by physical borders, but by a shared ethnic, cultural, or biological trait that imbues the community with a ‘general will’ and this “ will” typically includes political motives (Papish 2). Papish argues that it not part of the duty of a black person to have any sense of loyalty or solidarity with other African-Americans and that not doing so does not make them any less black than those that choose to have a thick sense of black identity. Those who don’t grow up with a strong black group identity in their lives are just as black and go through some of the same struggles that other black people do. In the video “Black Like Who?” Debbie Reynolds did not have a strong sense of blackness because she was raised in a white neighbor. The other ladies in the short film talk about how they thought that she had a “ real problem with [her] ethnicity like [she] had a problem with the fact that [she] born African-American (Reynolds). This along with the documentary on Lacey Schwartz show that a person’s sense of blackness is very much a product of what others around them define blackness as. However, it is not clear
Yang, G. & Ryser, T. A. (2008). Whiting up and Blacking Out: White Privlege, Race, and White Chicks. African American Review, 42(3/4), 731-746. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40301264
Within the Black Community there are a myriad of stigmas. In Mary Mebane’s essay, “Shades of Black”, she explores her experiences with and opinions of intraracial discrimination, namely the stigmas attached to women, darker skinned women, and blacks of the working class. From her experiences Mebane asserts that the younger generation, those that flourished under and after the Civil Rights Movement, would be free from discriminating attitudes that ruled the earlier generations. Mebane’s opinion of a younger generation was based on the attitudes of many college students during the 1960’s (pars.22), a time where embracing the African culture and promoting the equality of all people were popular ideals among many young people. However, intraracial discrimination has not completely vanished. Many Blacks do not identify the subtle discriminatory undertones attached to the stigmas associated with certain types of Black people, such as poor black people, lighter/darker complexion black people, and the “stereotypical” black man/woman. For many black Americans aged eighteen to twenty-five, discrimination based on skin color, social class, and gender can be blatant.
The mass media being one of the greatest influencers of public perceptions, their false portrayal of black males significantly impacts how the public perceives and behaves toward them, how black males see themselves as well as their the opportunities and achievements. But the mass media canbe part of the solution. Of course, the responsibility is not the media’s alone. But the media, as the public looking glass, can and should show the full spectrum of the lives of black men and boys.
marginalized or minority groups a means of expression—and the right for even those in the
In offering a way of the exclusive viewpoint of Dawson, Frazier, Darden and Henry (124-129) suggests that rather than solely conceptualizing the black public sphere using the civil rights movement prism, there is a need for scholars to enlarge their scope of interpretation and take into account the way numerous contemporaneous black publics have materialized in distinct forms, as well as in divergent historical backgrounds. Gates (67-70) defines such publics as a distinct collective of black individuals involved in overlapping and contending negotiations and discourses regarding what it implies to be black on specific area of interest. Thus, as opposed to concentrating on the counter-public or the black public sphere, the focus should be placed on several black public spheres made up of groups sharing specific racial makeup but do not share similar gender, ideologies, class and ethnicity. Krishna (78-79) asserts that realizing an increasingly nuanced comprehension of the often evolving link between black collectives through contemplation of the manner various social axes tend to shape such associations in domination structures. Reacting to the claims that the black public
This paper analyzes the media being one of the greatest influences of society perceptions, their false portrayal of African American males significantly impacts how society perceives and behaves towards them, and how black males see themselves as well as their opportunities and achievements. African American males are perceived as being dangerous based on false identities, misconceptions, and misinformation that are available in the media; this includes movies, news, television shows and rap music. This misconception can be traced as far back as slavery. The view of the African American male has been distorted and twisted by the media from the conception of African American enslavement and even through the so-called color blind society of today. Stereotypes of African American men are often negative as the result of how slave owners viewed their thoughts of entitlement of ownership.
In The Marrow of Tradition, author Charles W. Chesnutt illustrates examples that signify the thoughts that whites had of and used against blacks, which are still very much prevalent in public opinion and contemporary media. Chesnutt writes, “Confine the negro to that inferior condition for which nature had evidently designed for him (Chesnutt, 533).” Although significant strides have been made toward equality, the media, in many instances, continues to project blacks as inferior to whites through examples observed in television shows, music videos, films and newscasts. According to Poverty & Prejudice: Media and Race, co-authored by Yurii Horton, Raagen Price, and Eric Brown, the media sets the tone for the morals, values, and images of our culture. Many whites in American society, some of whom have never encountered black people, believe that the degrading stereotypes of blacks are based on reality and not fiction....
Since the beginning of time there has been an ever present divide between the male and female genders in every way. From politics all the way down to expectations, the common denominator in categorizing who takes care of what has always been decided by gender. In earlier times this divide led to the strict and often harsh treatment of women, but as time continued and the emergence of equal rights and feminist movements arose, the divide between the two genders has since begun to close, and has led to better relations between men and women.
In the story, “But What Do You Mean” by Deborah Tannen she talks about men and women having different ways of seeing things. Some of the things she talks about I believe in while the other things I believe that these things aren’t true. In the text it talks about many different things. It says women apologize to much while men don’t, women cannot take criticism as well as men, women say thank you to much where men don’t say thank-you enough, women and men don’t fight the same, women and men have different habits in regard to giving praise, women and men don’t compliment the same, and finally men can take jokes better than women.
The article, “RACE AND ETHNICITY- CHANGING SYMBOL IS OF DOMINANCE AND HIERARCHY IN THE UNITED STATES” by Karen I. Blu is an exceptional work that clearly expounds on the racial and ethnic groups especially in America. Racial and ethnic groupings are gradually becoming popular in the public arena, in which people are shifting their focus on classifying other people on the basis of racial groupings to rather classifying them on the basis of ethnicity. Moreover, race grouping is slowly submerging into ethnic grouping with Black activism being the role player in this (Blu, 1979). The following is a summary of the aforementioned article in how it relates to racial and ethnic groups and response regarding its views.
It will take a lot of time, experiences, challenges to develop a self-identity before a person recognizes the intersectionality of the identities that have influences in their lives. When people start to emphasize more on one of the identities, another identity may be left unexplored. David Hull (Bauman, 2014) pointed out, “because environments are so variable in both the short and long term, developmental plasticity is absolutely necessary if organism are to survive to reproduce. Any organism that can fulfill a need in only one way in only a narrowly proscribed environment is not likely to survive for long. If environments change sudden for a population, then what normal or advantageous may suddenly become disadvantageous and abnormal” (Bauman, 2014, p. 30). Especially, people need to learn how to emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of deaf identities in the present day. A quote from Crenshaw’s article, “Through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us and negotiate the means by which these difference will express in conducting group politics” (p. 1299). In other words, we need to acknowledge the intersectionality and diverse identities to synthesize them into a new concept of impartial intersectionality. People need to fight through reforming the stereotypes by showing what an entire person
The tyrannies of silence can be described as, “cultural and individual silences that regulate social and individual visibility and undermine the likelihood of social change,” (The Tyrannies of Silence, slide 2). The idea that, if you are not the one doing the oppression then you are not responsible to act, is a very outdated idea. Bystanders are just as guilty for the negative acts that occur. Silence is a chain reaction; if one person does not do anything then the next person also feels not obligated to step in. Discrimination is one of the main topics where silence can be observed. As shown in the video by Tess Paras, ethnicity is often observed as a trait that is limiting (Paras, 0:43-1:10). As a society, we have set up ethnic stereotypes that limit people based on their ethnicity. In the music video by Tess Paras, she identifies common roles in shows such as, “over-sexed Asians, urban girl with flavor,” (Paras, 1:17-1:19). When people naturally follow these stereotypes, they think that they are doing nothing wrong. However, being silent about the “typical” roles associated with ethnicity creates the stigma that there is nothing wrong with it. Another major area of silence is gender stereotypes. When people silently obey to these stereotypes, it makes it more difficult to identify who is being hurt and who is benefiting from these silences (The Tyrannies of Silence, slide 5). In the TED talk, Tony
Each of “The Big 8” social identifiers is broken down into three types of social groups as seen on the Matrix of Oppression: privileged, border, and targeted/oppressed. Although it is very rare, there are people that can be considered privileged in all eight social identity categories or targeted/oppressed in in all eight social identity categories. However, most people worldwide fall into a mix of both privileged social groups, border social groups, and targeted social groups. People who are in all, if not, most privileged social groups in “The Big 8” social identity categories, have a very difficult time noticing their superior treatment above the other two social groups. This is because these “superior” people have been receiving this type of treatment throughout their entire lives.
Today the issue of the difference between men’s and women’s use of language raises hot debates among sociolinguists, psychologists and other scholars. They create various theories that complicate the issue because of the fact that they observe gender differences from various perspectives. One theory is known as “genderlect”, which according to The Free Dictionary is a variety of speech, writing, or conversational style used by a particular gender. An analysis of the writings of both genders reveals one main difference between them: men focus more on status in their writings while women focus more on a connection with the reader (Lyons).