Growing up as a child during the 1970s in a predominantly African American neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles, the differences between me and my playmates never occurred to me. Although my mother and I eventually moved to the suburbs, my father remained there well into my adulthood. However, it was not until late childhood, while visiting my father on weekends, that I started to differentiate between my friends and myself, and my father’s home and my home. The realization I was different may have come about because of the piercing stares and turned heads at the neighborhood market. Or perhaps it was the racial epithets exchanged in anger between childhood friends. However, the image indelibly etched in my memory is that others referred to me as “Casper.” Yes, I am white¬¬––chalk white, milk white, even ghostly white. If others had not continuously pointed this out to me, I doubt I would have noticed at such a young age. Nevertheless, when you are young and searching for your identity, labels have a way of adhering to you and images engrave themselves in your mind long after they fall into disuse.
While this self-image endured for decades, it was far less demeaning than the labels applied to an entire race of African Americans. According to sociologist Dr. David Pilgrim, during the era of Jim Crow (1877-1965), various “stereotypical depictions of Blacks, helped to popularize the belief that Blacks were lazy, stupid, inherently less human and unworthy of integration” (“Who Was”). Promoted and exploited by the entertainment industry, the stereotypical black “Mammy” and faithful “Tom” permeated American culture in the form of cartoons, movies, radio, television and theater, dehumanizing Blacks and ultimately providing...
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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.
Portrayal of African Americans on television is frequently a controversial topic. Throughout its rather brief history, television, in its programming, has skewed predominantly white, (Pringozy, 2007). This was clearer in the 1950s and early 1960s, and it even remained true throughout the 1970s, when television shows with mainly all African American casts became hits, (Strausbaugh, 2006). The success of The Cosby Show in the 1980s helped to improve race relations somewhat, or at least on television, (McNeil, 1996). Still, controversy continued, and still does to this day, as to which shows present negative stereotypes of African Americans and which ones do not, (Strausbaugh, 2006). Therefore, when talking about the history of African Americans on television, it is best to begin with the show that is widely considered to be the epitome of negative stereotypes of African Americans on television: The Amos and Andy Show, (McNeil, 1996). This paper will examine the portrayal of African Americans through two shows from two generations and the impacts both shows had on Black America; The Amos and Andy Show (1928) and The Cosby Show (1984).
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a dramatic play written in 1959. The play is about an African American family that lives in the Chicago South Side in the 1950’s. Hansberry shows the struggles and difficulties that the family encounters due to discrimination. Inspired by her personal experience with discrimination, she uses the characters of the play, A Raisin In The Sun, to show how this issue affects families.
The reinforcement of racial stereotypes in literature and films can be a difficult topic for many individuals. There have been a great deal of works throughout the history of our country that have encouraged and promoted racial stereotypes among the African American race, such as the sambo; the buck; the mammy and the magical negro. All of these racial stereotypes have desensitized the American culture and created the view that racism in literature and films is acceptable. In the movies and novel The Help, The Whipping Man, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the rude and offensive ways in which African Americans were seen and treated, only worked to promote the horrible, racial stereotypes that many people are still trying to challenge to this day.
The protagonist and hero of our film Colonel Ben Cameron is portrayed as the honest and star struck lover who wants nothing but the love of his life by his side. Yet, this proves impossible with the newly corrupt and hate filled south created by the freed blacks, so Colonel Cameron devises the idea of the KKK on the stereotypical belief that all blacks are superstitious. Dressing as ghosts was an attempt to simply scare the blacks out of the south. Beliefs such as that of all blacks being highly superstitious and use of black face are some of the many racist aspects in “The Birth of a Nation”. The film even breaks down African Americans into a few categories The tom as the loyal slave who is always harassed and beat, the coon a black man who is viewed as lousy and good for nothing, pickanninies are the presentation of black children who were easily moved and had overly expressed features, the tragic mulatto from the one drop rule was a mixed black who was always angry because she had “corrupt” black blood, the mammy was the sexless, overweight female who cared for the kids, and the brutal black back who was centered around nothing but the desire for white women (Bogle 4-10). Each of these roles played a significant role in discriminately dividing the African American community into categories and expressing false differences between African Americans and
Many people in America like to think that racial stereotyping and racism is a thing of the past, but racial stereotyping is still prominent in America. Although racial stereotyping and racism significantly slowed down, it still remains a major factor in American society. In “The End of Post-Identity Television,” Aymar Jean Christian argues the fact that race is not a major factor in casting characters in a television series or a movie, he reveals that race is not relevant anymore. In Michael Omi’s “In Living Color: Race and American Culture,” he argues how racial stereotyping and racism still exist in America. The Cosby Show seeked to change racial stereotyping in television by portraying an upper-middle class African American family. The Cosby Show attempted to break barriers for African Americans in television and did so by paving the way for other major African American based sitcoms. “The End of Post-Identity
Besides, in cultivation theory, George Gerbner proposes that heavy users of media treat the content of media as a primary source to perceive the world and assert what they see in media is very similar to the reality (Bryant, Thompson and Finklea, 2013), so there is a high possibility that audience will bring the perception of stereotyped portrayals of African-American from media into the real world. Based on the above unhealthy situations, this paper is going to illustrate how the racial stereotypes in media negatively affect people’s perception, attitude and behavior toward African American in the reality....
Stereotypes strongly influence how people interact, communicate, and establish relationships with others around them (Fries-Britt and Griffin 2007). In mainstream America, black women are often stereotypically portrayed as sex workers, welfare queens, blue-collar service workers, video vixens, and entertainers (Collins 2004). Within these stereotypical depictions, black women are viewed as loud, angry, ghetto, hypersexual, and sometimes violent (Chavous et al. 2004; Childs 2005; Collins 2004; Nguyen & Anthony 2014; Wilkins 2012). In contrast, positive stereotypes of black women showcase them as strong, independent, resilient, loyal to their families and romantic partners, and responsible for sustaining the African American family. These images promote constructive illustrations of black women even though popularized images negatively portray black women (Chavous et al. 2004; Settles 2006; Wilkins 2012). These stereotypes of black women describe positive characteristics that many black women tend to ascribe to and attain. I argue that even though these stereotypes may yield positive behaviors from black women, they are still considered stereotypes because the majority will utilize these stereotypes to negatively categorize black women. In the words of Pat Hill Collins (2004: 263), “African American women’s race and gender classification disadvantages them”. Thus, these
... model for how the entertainment and media industries depict black people must change. Despite the progress that blacks have worked toward since the days of slavery, society continues to give in to the monetary benefits of producing self-disparaging entertainment and media. It is not only up to the directors, editors, producers and writers to establish this change, but it should also be the demand of the people, or the consumer. If the images of black people in the media are improved the outlook within the community will improve as well. Not only will positive goals and achievements become more realistic for black people if the media outlets discontinue their practice of equating blacks with aggression, lawlessness and violence, but a greater good will also result for whites, which would be represented by a true autonomy and equality in American society.
Woll, Allen L and Randall M Miller. Ethnic and Racial Images in American Film and Television: Historical Essays and Bibliography. n.d. Print.
After reading the four sources, I would qualify the claim that in today’s society, the United States of America is moving toward a new standard in which diversity and individuality are encouraged more than uniformity and conformity. In source 4: A Raisin in the Sun, the character Beneatha hates assimilation Negros. Also, in source 2: “Notes of a Native Speaker”, the author also believes in the claim in today’s society by stating the truth of how America is no longer white.
Being a woman is hard work. We many have pressures on us from society to marry, bear children, be an upstanding citizen, and maintain some sort of career, all the while trying to understand our bodies and its changes; being a woman of color, or black woman, it’s even harder. Not only do we have to deal with everything a White woman does, and we also have the added pressure of defying stigmas and stereotypes within our own group of people. What stigma’s you ask? How about not being perceived as ignorant, uneducated, and or “ghetto”. The stereotypical misrepresentations of African-American women and men in popular culture have influenced societal views of Blacks for centuries. The typical stereotypes about Black women range from the smiling, asexual and often-obese Mammy to the promiscuous and the loud, smart mouthed, neck-rolling Black welfare mother is the popular image on reality television. These images portrayed in media and popular culture creates powerful ideology about race and gender, which affects every day experiences of Black women in America.
Most of these images are always negative; in fact, when most of us turn on the television to watch a sitcom, we will often see African- Americans acting as if they have little or no sense at all. Frequently African-Americans would be depicted as being extremely melodramatic in all that they say or do, and it tends to send the wrong message to people in the United States; as well as, people all across the world. For example, on the television sitcom ‘Good Times’ viewers observed a black family living in a Chicago housing project in poverty. Sitcoms of African Americans who did not live in poverty were uncommon until the 80’s. The Huxtables introduced me and everyone else to a new image of living as an African American. ‘‘The Cosby Show’’ enlightened me to a new sense of self-confidence and pride. Throughout its broadcasting years, the Huxtable family candidly crushed the stereotypical images of the African-American family. The show displayed the African-American family in a way that was never before seen or grasped by the American public. In fact, during that era most of the mass media programs depicted African-American television families as hard working lower class poor citizens, many of which constantly used slang or terrible grammar. Likewise, the broadcasting community endorsed the idea that African-American people were connected to
Marlon T. Riggs’ video, Color Adjustment, offers the viewer an exciting trip though the history of television, focusing on the representation, or lack thereof, of African-Americans. A perfectly chosen combination of television producers, actors, sociologists, and cultural critics join forces to offer insight and professional opinion about the status of African-Americans in television since the inception of television itself. As Color Adjustment traces the history of television shows from Amos n’ Andy and Julia to "ghetto sitcoms" and The Cosby Show, the cast of television professionals and cultural critics discuss the impacts those representations have on both the African-American community and our society as a whole. Color Adjustment continually asks the question: "Are these images positive?" This video raises the viewer’s awareness about issues of positive images for African-Americans on television.
The late 1950s was filled with racial discriminations. There was still sections living as well as public signs of Colored and Whites. Blacks and Whites were not for any change or at least not yet. A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Vivian Hansberry, tells a story of a black family that is struggling to gain a middle class acceptance in Chicago. The family of five, one child and four adults live in a tiny apartment that is located in a very poor area. Dreams of owning a business and having money to accomplish goals is two key parts played out throughout the whole play. Walter Younger is determined to have his own business and he will go to ends met to see that dream come true. Financial bridges are crossed and obstacles arise when Walter makes a bad decision regarding money that could have help the family and not only himself, if he would have thought smarter. His pride and dignity are tested throughout the story and he is forced to setup for his family. The Raisin in the Sun helps readers to understand history of racial discrimination and how racial discrimination has an effect on the people in the late 1950s and early 1960s as well as how that has an effect on the characters within the play.