African American Park Ranger Analysis

Not so many years ago, I was watching a documentary about the National park system; and while this is not unusual for me, I do remember my reaction to seeing one of the Rangers that played a significant role in the film. His name is Shelton Johnson; he is African and Native American and my response to seeing him was one of wonder. It is not every day you see a Black man as a spokesman for anything, let alone for something as near and dear to the American public as our national parks. As I look back on my reaction to seeing him, what we are discussing in class comes together for me. My response when seeing him was, “huh, you do not see that every day.” When one spends the vast majority of their free time reading and looking at environmental

However, if you google “park ranger” almost all the pictures are of white people. It is a mix of men and women, but for the most part, they are all white. This exclusion of minorities in this way will reinforce stereotypes (Larson, 2006) and could discourage young minorities from pursuing careers in environmental work due to lack of role models (Li-Vollmer, 2002). The pictures represented in these two Google searches present entirely different perspectives of park rangers. To be honest, I have never given much thought to the under-representation of minorities in the media, not the way I should. I have often commented about the lack of decent minority characters in entertainment television shows and movies, but I never took it to the next level. I never thought that the underlying reason for the lack of representation would be due to bias and other racist leanings of the media and society. I just took it at face value and concluded that there are just not that many minorities interested in this line of

Johnson runs parallel to the stereotype is the way he speaks. Although I hesitate to use the word “normal” to describe it because after all what is normal, his speech is just that, normal. He does not have an over-exaggerated accent, nor does he use slag or other colloquial phrases that are commonly uttered by minorities on television. What I mean, is there is none of the stereotypical “blackness” to the way he carries his message to the public. I have seen a commercial recently that does the same thing. It presents a young Black family as just normal. They live in a lovely suburban home, Dad putters in the garage with a cup of coffee and mom and their young daughter are wasting time in the house. There are no stereotypical representations in the entire commercial unless you count the fact that mom played basketball when she was younger. It makes me uncomfortable to refer to it as “normal,” but that is how it feels to me from my perspective. They are just an everyday family doing everyday things. It was refreshing to watch and yet a little odd. The first time I saw it did not click with me what the difference was. There was just something that did not resonate about the commercial. It did not occur to me until I was watching it for a third time that this was not a stereotypical depiction of a black