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Stereotypes Of Black Men Essay

Decent Essays

The media is powerful. It shapes the minds of millions of Americans. Our position in the world allows our media to not only shape the perceptions of Americans, but the world at large. Whether listening to the radio, going to the movies or turning on your television, your brain is being feed a diet of what to wear, what to buy and more importantly, how to think, how to think about others. Media shapes our perceptions of different races, sex and religions. What are the effects of media and the stereotyping of these groups? We know that through television and film, the media reinforces stereotypes that have a profound effect on how we view these people in our everyday life.

I don’t expect the white media to create positive black male images
-Huey P. Newton …show more content…

Thug? Dangerous? Lazy? Public perceptions and attitudes toward black males not only help to create barriers to advancement within this society, but also make that position seem natural or inevitable. The overall presentation of black males in the media is distorted in a variety of ways, relative to the real-world facts. For various reasons, media of all types collectively offer a distorted representation of the lives and reality of black men. In turn, media consumption negatively affects the public’s understandings and attitudes related to black men. And these distorted understandings and attitudes towards black men lead to negative real- world consequences for us. These negative understandings of black men are consistently used to justify the racial inequities we encounter in a number of institutions, seen in the form of inflated rates of school discipline, underachievement in higher education, and higher rates of poverty, homicide, unemployment, and over involvement in the criminal

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