scholarly journals Media Gatekeeping and Portrayal of Black Men in America

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-81
Author(s):  
Felix Kumah-Abiwu

Black men continue to face many challenges in the United States, but their negative portrayal in the media seems to be one of the pervasive challenges facing them. While “occupying” a huge space in the media landscape, one wonders why such a space has not been adequately used to draw public interest/attention to the problems facing Black men. This dilemma with implications for policy outcomes (action/inaction) deserves further theoretical insight. To explore this, the article draws on the critical race theory and white racial frame with the literature on the social construction of Blackness, Black men, and media gatekeeping to advance the argument that the intersections of race, social structures, and media gatekeepers create incentives for the negative portrayal of Black men.

Author(s):  
Caron E. Gentry

This chapter argues that one of the central debates within Terrorism Studies will never be resolved: that of an agreed upon, objective definition. Several Terrorism Studies scholars believe that Terrorism Studies would be better off if it arrived at an objective definition for terrorism. Yet, this chapter demonstrates that how terrorism is largely understood is dependent upon various social structures, including gender, race, and heteronormativity. Thus, a thicker understanding of terrorism would acknowledge that it is an essentially contested concept or as an ‘utterance’. An agreed upon definition would present only a thin understanding, erasing the social structures that shape our understanding. Therefore, the chapter relies upon the concept of ‘aphasia,’ or calculated forgettings, from Critical Race theory. This concept holds that Western thought and society has purposefully forgotten how race and racialisation work to deny people of colour many things, including rationality, intelligence, and agency. Gender and heteronormativity operate in a similar way. Such operations infect all areas of life—the purpose of this chapter is to look at terrorism.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-115
Author(s):  
Ricky J. Pope, M.A.

The tragic killing of Trayvon Martin has received nationwide media coverage, even garnering commentary by the U.S. President. The attention is unique in the sense that young Black men in Martin’s age group have consistently been the most likely to be killed as a result of homicide and often ignored by the media. A personal reflection is provided to give context to the racial socialization process as well as the internal struggles being faced by some Black men in the United States. In addition, postings have been shared from the American Psychological Association Division 45 electronic mailing list capturing the social justice activism process in pursuit of justice for Trayvon Martin. The results of this article call for deeper analysis of the cause of racially motivated killings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Lalitha Nataraj ◽  
Holly Hampton ◽  
Talitha R. Matlin ◽  
Yvonne Nalani Meulemans

Although the issues of diversity and representation are often discussed within academic librarianship in Canada and the United States, the field has made little headway in being inclusive of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) who work within it. If academic libraries are to become truly authentic and inclusive spaces  where BIPOC are central not only to shaping the values of a library but also to determining how those values are accomplished, we must examine the traditional ways in which libraries function. One of these traditions is a reliance on bureaucracy and its associated practices such as structured group work and meetings, which are presumed to be inherently neutral and rational ways of working. Critical examinations of bureaucracy within higher education reveal how its overadoption is absurdly at odds with the social justice–oriented missions of most libraries. Furthermore, not all who are involved in libraries are equally harmed through this overreliance on bureaucracy; this article employs Critical Race Theory to uncover the insidious and specific deleterious impacts bureaucracies can have on BIPOC library workers. The antithesis of a neutral system, bureaucracy instead functions to force assimilation into a system entrenched in whiteness. 


2020 ◽  
pp. 216747952095077
Author(s):  
Evan L. Frederick ◽  
Ann Pegoraro ◽  
Samuel Schmidt

When asked if she would go to the White House if invited, Megan Rapinoe stated, “I’m not going to the fucking White House.” The next morning, President Donald Trump posted a series of tweets in which he criticized Rapinoe’s statements. In his tweets, Trump introduced issues around race in the United States and brought forth his own notion of nationalism. The purpose of this study was to conduct an analysis of users’ tweets to determine how individuals employed Twitter to craft a narrative and discuss the ongoing Rapinoe and Trump feud within and outside the bounds of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and nationalism. An inductive analysis of 16,137 users’ tweets revealed three primary themes: a) Refuse, Refute, & Redirect Racist Rhetoric b) Stand Up vs. Know your Rights, and c) #ShutUpAndBeALeader. Based on the findings of this study, it appears that the dialogue regarding racism in the United States is quickly evolving. Instead of reciting the same refrain (i.e., racism no longer exists and systematic racism is constructed by Black people) seen in previous works, individuals in the current dataset refuted those talking points and clearly labeled the President as a racist. Additionally, though discussions of nationalism were evident in this dataset, the Stand Up vs. Know Your Rights theme was on the periphery in comparison to discussions of race. Perhaps, this indicates that some have grown tired of Trump utilizing nationalism as a means to stoke racism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Reece

Critical race theory teaches that racism and racial inequality are constants in American society that stand outside of the prejudices of individuals. It argues that structures and institutions are primarily responsible for the maintenance of racial inequality. However, critical race theorists have neglected to formally examine and theorize colorism, a primary offshoot of racial domination. Although studies of colorism have become increasingly common, they lack a unifying theoretical framework, opting to lean on ideas about prejudice and preference to explain the advantages lighter skinned, Black Americans are afforded relative to darker skinned Black Americans. In this study, I deploy a critical race framework to push back against preference as the only, or primary, mechanism facilitating skin tone stratification. Instead, I use historical Census data and regression analysis to explore the historical role of color-based marriage selection on concentrating economic advantage among lighter skinned Black Americans. I then discuss the policy and legal implications of developing a structural view of colorism and skin tone stratification in the United States and the broader implications for how we conceptualize race in this country.


2019 ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Ana Sentov

This paper will examine how Grace Marks, the female protagonist/narrator of Alias Grace (1996), reclaims her history, which is comprised of many different, often contradictory stories of her life and the crime for which she is imprisoned. These stories reflect the dominant discourse of a conservative male-dominated society, in which Grace is an outsider, due to her gender, class, age, and immigrant status. The law, the medical profession, the church, and the media all see Grace as a disruptive element: a woman who committed or assisted in a murder, a lunatic and/or a member of the working class who dared disturb the social order. Grace is revealed not as a passive victim, an object to be acted upon, but as an agent capable of reclaiming history and constructing herstory, challenging and defying the expectations of dominant social structures. The paper will show that Alias Grace, as a novel giving voice to the marginalized and the silenced, stands as a compelling work that examines and provides insights into the position of women and its changes over the course of history, provoking a discourse that remains relevant today


Author(s):  
Naomi Zack

The subject of critical race theory is implicitly black men, and the main idea is race. The subject of feminism is implicitly white women, and the main idea is gender. When the main idea is race, gender loses its importance and when the main idea is gender, race loses its importance. In both cases, women of color, especially black women, are left out. Needed is a new critical theory to address the oppression of nonwhite, especially black, women. Critical plunder theory would begin with the facts of uncompensated appropriation of the biological products of women of color, such as sexuality and children.


2021 ◽  
pp. 153270862110540
Author(s):  
Jeremy Hau Lam ◽  
Katrina Le ◽  
Laurence Parker

This article emerged from undergraduate students in an Honors College class on critical race theory at the University of Utah during the spring semester 2020 during the pandemic. The counterstories evolve around critical race theory/Asian American Crit and the historical and current violence against the Asian American community in the United States. Given the recent anti-Asian American backlash which has emerged through the COVID-19 crisis, to the March 2021 murders of the Asian American women and others in Atlanta, we present these counterstories with the imperative of their importance for critical social justice to combat White supremacy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (13) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Floyd D. Beachum

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is now the educational law of the land. It replaced and revised what was known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). ESSA represents a movement from more federal oversight to more state and local control. Although this transitional time period is one of great potential and excitement, educators and policy makers might also want to remain cautious. This next educational era of ESSA is still plagued by the problems of the past era. Teachers and administrators are still struggling to turn around low-performing schools in many U.S. urban areas; many urban educational issues, like high-dropout rates, gang influence, and low student engagement, are still inextricably linked to the socioeconomic problems that exist in local communities. This analysis first seeks to explain the purpose of ESSA. It then outlines the current plight of many students of color in the United States. Next, critical race theory is used to contextualize and categorize persistent problems that face the implementation of ESSA for these students of color. Finally, the author proposes ways to address the stated problems for school leaders and policy makers.


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