Racial Representation in Mainstream Media
[Applause]
when i was about five years old
my mother bought me a book called all
the colors of the earth
and upon opening it i realized it was
unlike any other one i’d ever read
before
because it was filled with children of a
range of different colors
the author sheila hamanaka described
children
in the roaring brands of bears and
soaring eagles
the whispering golds of late summer
grasses and the crackling russets of
fallen leaves
the tinkling pinks of tiny seashells by
the rumbling sea
hearing this little excerpt even now i
still remember the warm feeling it
filled me with ten years ago
and the joy i felt to see a brown girl
on paper
when i was seven i remember running to
my mother crying and demanding to know
why she and my father had given me my
name riti
i told her i wanted to change it
immediately
she looked at me puzzled at first before
humoring me and asking me
why that was to be honest i hadn’t
expected to get that far so i just broke
down further
into a sobbing wailing and tearful mess
while she comforted me
still confused by this emotional inquiry
i didn’t know how to tell her that i
wanted to change more than just my name
but also my skin my hair my
eyes my culture my everything
you see i wanted to be an ashley or an
emily
with fair skin and blonde hair and blue
eyes
not a riti with brown skin and brown
hair
and brown eyes i felt disgusted that i
felt this way but i also felt disgusted
to be within my own body
unseen in the books i read on the tv
shows i watched
i was jealous of some of my friends who
did have somebody who looked like them
so when we played make-believe or joked
about who we wanted to be when we were
older
they always had a character or an answer
eventually i brushed my feelings off and
i told my mother i didn’t want to talk
about it again
and she understood she had bought me
that book
all the colors of the earth two years
prior because she knew
how much i struggled with my color
but despite her best efforts that
feeling of unimportance
of being a brown wilted leaf amongst
fresh screens
that didn’t go away
now eight years later i’m here to talk
to you about the power of racial
representation
and why it still matters because i know
i’m not the only child who felt
inadequate
who felt that they didn’t meet the
caucasian ideal presented to us in our
media
i also know that i’m not the only person
waiting for the day when my generation
won’t have to run down to the local mall
to pick up a picture book
just so their five-year-old can feel
accepted
so let’s begin by talking about one of
the most commonly used words nowadays
diversity i’ll admit it has gotten
better in recent years
with films like black panther and crazy
rich asians
and verbal outrage where such
representation has failed to manifest
netflix now one of the largest streaming
services available
has been pushing through diversity
calling for actors of various ethnic
backgrounds to front line tv shows and
movies
to convey the stories of people of color
minorities are also steadily surging
into cinemas at a higher rate than ever
historically recorded before
with 54 of the audience of avengers end
game
one of the largest blockbuster films in
recent years being made
up of people of color
it feels like we’re finally on the path
towards seeing non-white folk on the
screen
as a norm rather than a spectacle
however it is far more difficult to
cleanse an industry notorious for its
flawless execution of racism
through stereotyping and job exclusion
behind the scenes than one might think
and these small strides towards
diversity
they shouldn’t be mistaken for the
bigger victory of equal racial
representation
in fact to better illustrate this for
you i just want to share a few
statistics
in 2019 27.6 of lead actors in hollywood
were people of color
a increase to 2018 whilst 15.1 percent
of all movie directors
were minorities or 4.2 decreased
to the previous year diverse movie
writers also covered a measly population
of 13.9 percent
so better sure sometimes
but perfect hardly
a major reason for this stifle growth is
a lack of understanding on what racial
representation is
and why it matters in the first place
often
representation is confused with having a
single black
asian or latino or non-white character
in an otherwise completely caucasian
caste
they’re solely for comic relief or to
convey a false sense of diversity
you know what i’m talking about we’ve
all seen it
these token characters have
personalities built on stereotypes
and are there for the rare difficult
conversations about discrimination
as a love interest antagonist or
for humor reasons as the main
character’s best thought
they don’t get the limelight they just
take the box
and of course racial representation is
not perpetuating stereotypes
and expressing a race or ethnic group
how it’s assumed to be
most of all it is not caucasian erasure
it is however the equal representation
of various racial and ethnic groups with
accurate research and understanding
now a few of you might be thinking
what’s the big deal
we do have representation why aren’t you
talking about that
well i agree but first let’s face it out
of it
for over a century minorities on people
of color have been victim to the media’s
belittling and demeaning
portrayal of their people they have
watched
as an industry profited off of age-old
stereotypes and perceptions
to garner larger audiences often at the
expense
of people of color and their actors
our writers directors and artists are
silenced
and locked out of decision-making rooms
our stories diluted
and manipulated to create a norm which
we all blindly follow
consequently what we see
is often a caricature of our cultures
and screen
we get stereotypes like the dragon lady
or
tiger mom the overly sexual latino or
the sassy black woman
we see tropes like the white male savior
a narrative based on a white man
who upon recognizing the peril of people
of color
caused by racism and discrimination
saves them
which in reality is simply an extension
of colonialism and narcissism
exploiting the struggles of minorities
and people of color
for a touching redemption arc
we don’t get accurate representation
instead we see people that look like us
on screen
but people that we can’t fully identify
with
because they’re interpreted through a
whitewash filter
over the camera lens somebody else’s
lens
this creates a confusing relationship in
which we’re expected to be grateful to
be seen
but we don’t understand what we’re
seeing
or first of all we don’t even get this
representation in the first place
and our characters are never written or
they are raised
take scarlett johansson’s role in the
movie the ghost in the shell for example
which was originally written for an
asian woman but was whitewashed
look at the fictional character of al
harrison in the non-fictional movie
hidden figures which told the story of
katherine johnson
a black woman and the nasa rocket launch
who is there solely
for his white male savior narrative
internalized racism and prejudices
continue
to be seen throughout the fabric of what
makes hollywood
you can see it in characters like
baljeet from phineas and ferb
ravi from jessie abu from the simpsons
or gloria from modern family
and unfortunately these stereotypes
don’t only stay on screen
disguised as entertainment they venture
further into our lives
our work into our world
so let’s talk through these impacts a
bit by looking at the following articles
from the same journalists published
within a day of one another
about two different groups who committed
the same crime
when the news agency was questioned for
their decision to obtain
graduation photos for the caucasian men
you see on screen here but mugshots
for the african-american men they
defended themselves
saying that they needed to put in a
formal request to get mugshots
however in doing so they overlook their
decisions to perpetuate
the stereotype of black men being
immediately guilty in the crimes that
they’re accused of
this is evidence of a subtle racial bias
that manifests without an individual’s
knowledge
without the individual recognizing the
gravity of their actions
of course the criminalization of black
men and women seen in the media
and news goes further than only with
black people
internalized racism and prejudice
continues on for other minorities and
racial groups
and this impacts everything from the
very weight that we interact with one
another
so let me lay out these impacts for you
in a more clear manner
in our legal systems people of color are
five times more likely to be convicted
of longer sentences
for the exact same crimes a study
conducted by the remain trust and the
university of greenwich also found
that black and muslim inmates are
consistently treated worse
within prisons police
as we see nowadays are able to act as
judge jury and executioner before
their suspects sometimes the innocent
and mostly
people of color are able to say their
case
in the world of economics and finance
children of color are more likely to be
of lower socioeconomic statuses by the
time they are adults
even if they do start from the same
financial status
as their caucasian counterparts caused
by
racially biased hiring and policing
another study found that minorities who
whitened their resumes
removing any racial cues or cultural
hints got nearly twice
as many callbacks for interviews
in the world of residency and health
care minorities
are affected by residential housing
segregation
and are more likely to live in densely
populated areas that are farther away
from basic facilities such as medical
care facilities
grocery stores and pharmacies making it
more difficult for them to obtain their
most basic needs
people of color are also more likely to
not have insurance coverage
adequate pay sick leave ensure
adventure insurance and a variety of
other factors that impact their
day-to-day lives
this has become increasingly apparent
with the pandemic and cobia 19
as studies have found that people of
color are disproportionately affected
by what our world is facing making up
more of the severe outcome cases
hospitalizations and deaths
finally in pop culture and media we see
the cultures of non-white folk
being appropriated for beauty purposes
or aesthetics
just take the fox eye trend or the trend
of darkening your skin
wearing large hoops dreadlocks box
braids
thin these to coachella or native
american feathers
hairstyles jewelry and clothing garments
that were previously deemed to ghetto
to weird or too exotic and now being
reappropriated
for white audiences and portrayed as
trendy cool and the next big thing
what began as appreciation has quickly
shifted towards cultural appropriation
and erasure and arguably the worst
impact of all
which affects everybody listening to
this whether as a parent
child or teacher is how racial
stereotyping and prejudice seen through
our media
affects children a study conducted in
communication research that surveyed
over 400 children
found that white boys are more likely to
develop higher self-esteems
as compared to children of different
races
or girls this is a result of gender and
racial practices conducted by hollywood
and the media as a whole in which
caucasian men are conveyed as heroes
whilst other groups are pushed aside as
antagonists
sexual interests side characters
or simply unimportant
furthermore these impacts they don’t
only stay on screen
as mentioned they affect everything down
to how we interact with one another
as put by nancy ryan yuen who wrote real
inequality
hollywood actors and racism this is
dangerous
because when there is a lack of racial
representation people tend to rely
on media stereotypes to formulate their
opinions
about people outside of their own race
and when these stereotypes are damaging
or inaccurate this changes the way
that we interact with one another as a
whole
today when the conversation about
anti-racism and activism
is more poignant than ever we need to
pause and consider what cues we’re
taking in from our media
because unfortunately prejudices and
biases are all around us
in asia we may think that we are
excluded from the narrative of racism
that we see
across the western world particularly in
the united states
but we are not for it is in the very
media that we see all around us
we cannot stay silent and oblivious and
we need to start noticing
what we’re reading what we’re watching
and what we’re taking in
so speak up thank you