By Destiney Davis
Growing up as an African American female has been the best of times, but also the worst at times. But, through every struggle I had my father to fall back on. Dennis Davis, a 6-foot African American male with three kids, a loving wife and the heart of the nicest man alive. Who would fear that? Unfortunately, many people fear just that but why? African American males are often portrayed as monsters and thugs more whether that be in television, movies and especially the news.
In American culture, black men are faced with this double life because they are seen as amazing for athletic abilities but in the social world they are looked down upon and judged by untrue stereotypes. The news often portrays these black males as overly masculine and aggressive towards anyone and everyone around them. Not only is news a problem, but black men are often underrepresented in roles that do not include violence or an increase in masculinity which would include the stereotypical “big scary black man”. According to Opportunity Agenda, black men are underrepresented in roles that include technology as well as roles in luxurious product commercials. This may not seem like a problem at first glance, but because African American men are not seen in these “good” roles, they are not given the chance to break false stereotypes.
Now, we are going to take a closer look into the representations that news channels often portray about African American men. In your own personal experience, try to remember the last news story or article that you have read or seen about a black man. Chances are you will have seen the word ‘thug’, ‘violent’ and various other derogatory terms that may not even fit the severity of the crime.
One of the biggest targets of these unfair representations include the male black athlete. According to scholar Suzanne Marie Enck-Wanzer, we as an audience have become desensitized to this notion of violent athletes. The word ‘pitfall’ was used to describe Warren Moon’s domestic abuse of his wife on USA Today, so this particular news station “reinforces the notion that, for athletes especially, domestic abuse is just a natural byproduct of aggressive play, but not one that should interrupt their careers” (9). So, we as an audience are no longer shocked when we see a black athlete being accused of domestic violence because we have been trained to expect this.
So, not only are black men over-represented in violent situations, they are underrepresented in the news for their successes. Because of these misrepresentations American culture has continued this normalization of believing all black men are hyper-masculine, therefore; black men will continue to be demonized as a group despite the various individuals that do not fall under this domestic abuse and violent category, like men such as my father. News stations have the responsibility to evaluate the type of language used to describe black men, as well as utilizing their platforms in order to more effectively represent this heavily marginalized group.
References
Enck-Wanzer, S. M. (2009). All’s Fair in Love and Sport: Black Masculinity and Domestic Violence in the News. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 6(1), 1-18. 10.1080/14791420802632087
The Opportunity Agenda. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://opportunityagenda.org/
Word Count: 510
Destiney, you've taken a page from Second Wave feminism here: you're making the personal, political.
ReplyDeleteYour loving description of your dad sets up a wide ranging discussion of racialized media portraits of African-American men. This is an ideal way of reaching our target demographic (college age students) with this timely critique of representational politics.
I especially appreciate your attention to news portrayals. While Kidd doesn't have much to say about journalism, we've tried to "fill in" his analysis with some insights based on recent events, and, in your case, a brief qualitative analysis of sorts. That is, your post focuses on "how" African-American men are portrayed in US news culture.
Scholars have called attention to the prominence of "the scary black man" in American journalism dating back to the colonial era. In the age of 24/7 news, this trope is hard to miss. It's tougher to recognize the "absence" of black men in advertising, until someone like you calls attention to this. In essence, your analysis cuts across media genres and formats. Well done!
All the same, your essay left me wanting more. You had another 100 words to work with so I'm a little disappointed you didn't elaborate on some of these important insights. Guess we'll have to save that for another class ;)
So apart from lingering issues with punctation and APA referencing, this post makes an important contribution to our semester-long inquiry into "representational politics." Nowhere is this more clear than in the painful dichotomy your essay reveals: demonizing depictions of black men in popular culture versus your lived experience with a caring father.
27 pts.