Rat Race II: Racial prejudice in print media.

All of us have received countless letters from a variety of schools with a brochure telling us how incredible the school is, But have you ever taken a moment to look at the front cover? Have you noticed anything a little odd? You may have noticed that the students on the front cover are specifically and strategically placed to trick the reader into believing that they are going to be welcomed into a diverse and open school. However, the sad reality is that you will find that thee students are not what they appear to be.

First of all, the majority of them are white, however there are the strategically placed African American, Asian and Middle Eastern students. Usually among eight Caucasian students there are two or three varied ethnicities. Look for example at the Boston College welcome brochure we received when we first arrived; there are 6 caucasians (4 of which are men) ONE African American and TWO Asian students. This sad display of "diversity" is discouraging and incredibly obvious.

While researching, I found a study done by Eugene Caruso, an assistant professor of behavioral science at Chicago Booth; Emily Balcetis, an assistant professor of psychology at NYU; and Nicole Mead, a postdoctoral fellow at Tilburg University, where students were asked to look at photographs of biracial government people, including Barack Obama, and tell whether they saw that the person was more or less like they themselves. They found that the lighter skinned the candidate, the more students supported him. The researchers said this: (1)"The results from three studies suggest that political partisanship can shape which perceptual depictions of a biracial candidate people see as most representative of who he really is. Our data suggest that people's perceptions of skin tone for both novel and known candidates are systematically related to their stated voting intentions and reported voting behavior, such that both are positively correlated with the extent to which people see lighter skin tone as representative of the candidate. Across the three studies reported here, we found that partisans not only ''darken'' those with whom they disagree, but also ''lighten'' those with whom they agree. Future research should aim to clarify the specific relationship between skin tone perception and voting behavior, to determine whether ''coloring'' a biracial candidate's skin tone plays a causal role in the relationship between political partisanship and voting behavior."

Although sad, the findings accurately portray Americans views of race: you are only valuable if you aren't the minority.

(1) Marc Ambinder, Politics in The Atlantic, Jan 2008, "Lighter skin, More like me".

To read the entire article, visit:http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/11/_reply_reply_to_all.php

Rat Race: Has society changed or are we more racist than ever?

With the election of Barack Obama as President, many have commented that the nation is overcoming its race issues, however there has also been no signs of real progress. We have yet to see a decline in racially charged crimes and just recently a judge in Louisiana refused to marry a biracial couple. Furthermore, Disney just recently created a movie with their first ever African American princess, needless to say the cartoon movie was set in the 1940's, the princess has a southern accent and is surrounded by supporting characters who use poor grammar and slang. With such poor examples of racial diversity like that in the media, can we honestly say that progress is being made in the battle against racial prejudice?

As I contemplated this question myself, I searched on many different networks for shows that incorporate a variety of races without creating the "token black guy" effect. Unfortunately, I could not find one. Some of my favorite shows are Law and Order: SVU, Grey's Anatomy and The Game. Two of which-- Grey's and Law and Order have "token" races; both have one asian character and one black character. The asian characters on both are made to be the most intelligent and the black characters are lighter skinned men who have "made it out of the hood". On the other hand, there is "The Game" which was first aired on the CW but was cancelled because it was unpopular, however when BET picked up the series, ratings went through the roof and the rights to the show were bought by BET. Sadly, the truth is that there are two kinds of shows; one where there are token races, strategically placed in stereotypical roles or the latter, sitcoms that are centered around one race and thus only popularized by that race, such as "Meet the Browns". Below you can see the trailer for the disney movie and judge for yourself if it fits the media's stereotypical roles with race.

Although these racial prejudices are still very much alive in the media, I truly believe that all it takes to fix the problem is to have one giant media source

display and race and human relationships in an accurate and fair light. It may be a ways off, but there is always the hope the intellect and human

understanding will override any media conglomerate looking to make money.