However, as much as Ethnic Diversity can be a good thing, it also can create a lot of problems. Since Ethnic diversity creates so much "culture" and differences, it is impossible to understand and know something about each culture. It is then when people start relying on a tool known as "Stereotyping" to make judgements and limit the personal investigation one has to do on particular Ethnic groups and their culture. Stereotyping is defined as "a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group". By stereotyping, one is assuming that all people of a particular Ethnic group are the same and there are no differences between individuals in the group. A perfect example in the real world is the stereotype that all Native Americans wear headdresses. In the "American" world, when Native images are created or displayed, the person depicted is often shown to be sporting some sort of headdress. Historically, headdresses were generally used for ceremonial purposes or by the dominant members of ancient tribes and thus very few people wore the headdresses regularly. Although the true information is very easy to find out, human beings tend to be lazy and do not actually go and do their own research of the subject themselves. Therefore, they take the easy route out and acquire their knowledge from the Native American stereotype that "Indians wear Headdresses". Stereotyping can then create a lot of inaccuracies which can lead an individual away from knowing the truth.Many minority groups feel that they are often being misrepresented and misunderstood by majority groups. In the world of Entertainment for example, it is much easier to show a stereotyped image of a particular group rather than giving the audience an accurate portrayal. Since many individuals rely on stereotypes, it would confuse the majority of an audience to display a group of individuals accurately. A perfect example of a group of people misunderstood because of the Media are Arabs and Muslims. An Arab person is essentially anyone who comes from the Middle East and since the Islam religion is in a high concentration in that area, the words Muslim and Arab have now become somewhat interchangeable for many people. In Hollywood and the real world, Arabs are often portrayed as being terrorists and villains. Because of major media events such as "9/11", an entire race/ethnic group of people have all been stereotyped to be cold-blooded, heartless killers. Western Media is constantly creating an "Us VS Them" mentality, attempting to turn the Western citizens against the Arabs and create them into the "Enemy". The Media hopes to turn them into the Western Enemy so that the Western world blames the Arabic people for problems, rather than blaming other Western people. It is entirely unfair to demoralize an entire group of people because of what a very small number of people from that group did. For people with any common sense, will not fall into believing the stereotypes and blame an entire group of people for the problems.
Also in our Ethnic Diversity unit we focused on the topic of Racial Representation in Media products, specifically Television. In one of our assignments, we were assigned a genre of television programming and we were to watch 10 hours worth of television total (as a group). While watching the programming, we were to record the ethnicity of any person we saw on the program and record what profession they were portrayed to have had. Our group was assigned the genre of "Situational Comedy" and one can best describe a "Sitcom" by saying that they are a comedic dramatization of people in their day-to-day lives. Our group viewed shows such as Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond and the King of Queens, and it was interesting to see how the Racial Representations on these shows compared to the Population Percentages in the real world.The 2003 US Demographics showed the population of the United States as being:
66.2% White
12.9% Black
15.2% Latino/Hispanic
4.7% Asian/ Pacific Islander
1.0% American Indian/ Alaska Native
While the 2006 Canadian Demographics showed the population of Canada as being:
79.8% White
2.23% Black
0.97% Latin/Hispanic
5.62% Asian
3.67% Aboriginal
1.35% Arab
6.39% Other
Our studies found the Racial Representation on Live-Action Sitcoms to be:
81.55% White
11.6% Black
2.28% Latino/Hispanic
2.81% Asian/Pacific Islander
0.70% Aboriginal
0.53% Arab/Middle Eastern
0.53% Pakistani/Indian
While the a study by an organization known as Children Now found the Racial Representation on television to be:
73% White
16% Black
6.5% Latino/Hispanic
3% Asian/ Pacific Islander
0.5% Arab/Middle Eastern
0.4% Pakistani/Indian
0.7% Other
As one can see, for the most part television has a predominantly "White" look to it. The majority of characters are "white" just as the majority of people are "white". However, we can see that in Sitcoms, white characters are being over represented in those series. Perhaps one might take it as if someone is trying to say that "white" people are funnier. However, a logical person hopefully can understand that this is indeed not the case.
While reviewing the representation of other groups, one can see that many of them are under represented. Latino people, for example, are extremely underrepresented on television. While the US population is about 15% Latino, on television, Latino characters are only found 6.5% (less than half of their racial representation in the US). By reviewing this comparison, one might conclude that the Media is trying to tell us that Latinos are less important. By representing these people less than they actually can be seen in the real world, television producers are creating a world that does not accurately represent the real world. Television networks should remember that in order to create a great show, they must be able to gain a large audience. By misrepresenting and under-representing people, those individuals might not want to watch the show, and in turn will make the shows less successful than it could have been. In order to create successful entertainment, more emphasis should be put on accurately portraying the real world. Stations such as FOX that are proactively trying to create a more accurate television world should be saluted as they are raising the bar in order to create justice and equality for everyone.
As one can see, our unit in Ethnic Diversity was a mind opening experience. One could see how misrepresented and underrepresented some groups of people are that we might not have noticed before. In order to create a peaceful world, without problems, we should try to accurately portray and represent all people. Everyone was created as equals and to treat people as lessers is wrong. Perhaps if more people open their eyes and understand just how inaccurate the world can be, we can work towards solving and fixing our problems.
References:
"diversity." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 03 May. 2009.
"ethnicity." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 03 May 2009.
Children Now"Fall Colors" Publications.ChildrenNow.org. 1 May 2009. 2004
"Doug" No Date. Online Image. Zerflin.com. 02 May 2009.
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