Race, Media, and America

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, and it kills me to see how many examples of covert racism we have in our media, and how easily people look over it every day. I'll link a couple different articles and say something short at the end.

Feministing has an article here about Beyonce getting airbrushed basically white, and here about Freida Pinto (star of Slumdog Millionaire) being airbrushed lighter as well.

Racialicious has an post about the white-washing of the Avatar the Last Airbender live-action movie. You may remember that I discussed white-washing in Hollywood earlier. Angry Asian Man has some posts on it as well.

Racialicious (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite sites) has another post on The Princess and the Frog. I like this one a lot because it covers a lot of points people bring up about criticisms about the movie.

Here's feministing discussing gentrification (not exactly about racism, but still an interesting read on the politics and ethics of it). Another one here by racialicious.

Here's one on removing minorities from the idea of the "average American" in polls. It's from Sociological Images.

This one comes from Sociological Images as well, and it's mind-boggling. It's about the Muslim threat that the world finds it self facing. I'm not sure what the take away from this video is. Should we all be having more children?

Besides the gentrification pieces, all of these posts are on the the intersection of race and the media. All of the posts are on issues found in far-reaching modes of communication. The internet, newspapers and news programs, magazines, freaking Disney!

Disney, with a reputation of racism, should be highest on the list of people to complain about, but when complaints are voiced, those complaints are silenced by people saying that blacks are just being ungrateful or too sensitive. Whagt other princess has been changed into an animal for most of the dang movie? How many other mixed-race prince and princess couples have there been, and why are they just starting now with the black princess. It's the same thing with Hitch. They would not cast a black woman as the lead because the studio didn't want it to be a "black movie."

Complaints are being silenced when they are thrown at Avatar as well by saying that roles shouldn't be based on race alone. The fact is that Asians have been cut from parts so often that it doesn't seem to be possible that the studios will let an Asian lead character can carry a film on his own. They must be relegated to side-kick or co-star. Finally, Asian Americans had not only one hero, but multiple heroes to identify with, and Nickelodeon has snatched that away by white-washing the cast.

We are daily bombarded with images and writings that are absurdly racially insensitive or even borderlining on overt racism. We cannot sit back and just accept these images as the way the world is. They may be how the world is today, but if there is nothing done, it will be the way the world is tomorrow as well.