Relevance

Today I will be looking at a fellow classmate’s blogging website. Her website is about race in the media, although there is the occasional post about the way in which women are portrayed in various media forms. Her blog is essentially the different ways that the media tries to portray people of various ethnic backgrounds. Her first blog is just an introduction to her subject, much like mine. Her second post is about how minorities are typically related to gang violence by the media. I actually just recently read in Racializing Justice, a book that is rather pertinent to this blog, that the release of movies like Boyz in da Hood and other forms of media depicting black men as fierce gangsters only led to more needless arrests of black Americans; media has typecast these poor souls as being violent, and our justice system responds in kind. Her third post in about women in the media. In this short bit, she makes many good points about how women are sexualized by the media (turned into sex objects). I particularly like her formula
“Man + Sexy Ad = Profits, Profits, PROFITS!”. In fact, I remember reading a chapter in my old Women’s Psychology book that detailed pretty much everything that she mentions in this blog. Frankie is right on target. Her fourth blog is about racism during this presidential election. Personally, I don’t think that racism during this election is nearly as bad as it could be; that being said, in order for this country to be truly free it shouldn’t be there at all. Her fifth blog is about typecasting minorities in film. Anyone who has ever seen any movie can see this if they look close enough, and it’s a shame. Her newest blog, dated today, is a blog exactly like this one, detailing another blog.
So how is this relevant to racism and justice? Because the American justice system is powered by people. Judges, juries, and even criminals are influenced by the media. A jury may convict a black man of drug possession merely because he is black, and everyone “knows” that blacks are prone to drug addiction. In reality, they are no more susceptible then you or I. But the media shapes beliefs, and beliefs can get folk thrown into jail needlessly.