Jessica Periago Blog #3

Since the article only covers African Americans, I am not convinced of the validity of the author’s argument. It upsets me that the stereotype of African Americans is being inherently angry, emotionally unpredictable or unstable, violent, threatening and sexually aggressive. People are afraid of African Americans because of their dominant genetics. This is something that you cannot control. I feel ABC and other popular media sources find money to outweigh a story’s factual precedence.

First, it seems that today’s modern society has learned from the past. What happened before is called history for a reason, because it does not exist anymore. For every person, no matter what ethnicity, we must forget and live in “the now”. Kids grow up learning about our nation and the world to relive the past, when we should be learning about what is happening at the present moment.

Stereotypes account for all races and not just African Americans. Learning from Society in the United States, it seems like the white majority do not have as much negative attention, but that is not true either. Why else would they have the Blue Collar Comedy Tour where a bunch of “rednecks” are making jokes about themselves? Is it because they are comedians that it is appropriate? Either way it is not just the minorities, everyone is in on the jokes. Much of the lines drawn between cultures have to do more with the association of having money. So if the majority of the United States is white, there might be a possibility that there is a wider spectrum of those who have money and those who don’t.

My goal is to stay away from one accusation of certain majority or minority groups. Media tends to play a role of pointing fingers. While they are snickering behind the scenes, millions of people who watch what goes on is verbatim. Ultimately, stereotypes and other issues apply to any social, cultural, religious groups and are not just restricted to African American. People need to open their eyes and reach to people of different ethnic and culture background and truly try to understand them before to judge them. I think the quote “Never judge a book by its cover” fits well with this chapter.

Questions:

1. Would you want to be part of a reality show? Why/Why not?

2. How do African Americans see themselves?

3. Why are people so addicted to reality shows?