There is a biased view in most prestigious universities that regard African American males as pawns instead of academic scholars due to racial based assumptions and stereotypic attitudes. Most individuals with the racism attitudes believe that African Americans are naturally academic dwarfs thus they lack the ability of achieving academically as with the case of their Whites counterparts. This is due to the assumption that Africans are essentially adapted for manual duties but not first class roles that need a sharp brain. According to Wilson, Lena and Félix (205), the mass media plays a crucial role in bringing on board how white Americans perceive African-Americans. This is because of the irresistible media focus on drug use, crime, gang violence, and other inconsiderate behavior among African-Americans. It has fostered a distorted and destructive public awareness of African-Americans. African-Americans have a history of struggle against discrimination and oppression. Media has assumed a strategic role in perpetuating the effects of racial oppression. It has also contributed to emphasize the African-Americans' status as second-class people. The paper explores a common notion in prestigious universities where African Americans are considered pawns rather than academic scholars.
Filmmakers make movies that give the audience a perception of good motive towards the blacks by the whites. Films rarely show racism since no one believes that racism does not exist in America. Different foster parents brought Michael Oher up in his child hood. His mother was under the influence of drug addiction making her incapable to bring him up. He used to run away each time he was in a new home. Due to his athletic size, Michael enrolls to Wingate Christian School despite his extremely bad academic records (Hancock, The Blind Side).
There was an incidence where a woman noticed him shivering as he walked on the road. She decides to offer him a place when she noticed he wanted to sleep outside the school gym and he slowly becomes a member of that family. Michael’s presence around their daughter scares Friends to that family. This is because they are not confident with a black teenager around a white woman because of the bad picture they have about black Americans. Especially when they learnt that, the mother was a drug addict (Hancock, The Blind Side).
Michael joins football team of that school after his grades improve. He has an unstable start due to his gentle and polite nature after Leigh Anne’s encouragement regarding cooperation with his teammates. Leigh Anne learns that for a black to qualify to have NCAA Division I scholarship, Michael was supposed to get 2.5 GPA. This forces her to look for a private tutor. Finally, Michael manages to score the required grades (Hancock, The Blind Side).
Racism is very evident in Universities since African American discrimination is evident especially in the admission process. Male Africa Americans experience the worst segregation since whites regard them as pawns. Sy Stokes led a group of UCLA black students in posting a video voicing out their concerns about a number of problems they are facing as black students on campus a message hard to ignore. He is an Afro-American student who identifies himself as black, Chinese and Cherokee. There is a lot of media biasness when it comes to racism because journalists hide a lot of information regarding Racism. Journalists filter the information presented to the audience hence giving a bad picture to the Africa Americans because since the information they give portrays them negatively (Jakubowicz and Heather 194).
The apparent bias of news producers and journalists in the media is through the selection of stories and events they cover and report. It is the pervasive bias disregarding standards of journalism, rather than the outlook of an article or journalist as an entity. The inability of journalists reporting neutral and all available stories and facts and linking into a logical narrative brings about biasness (Hancock, The Blind Side).
African American students encounter several injustices by administration concerning the blacks that enroll in universities. A good example is UCLA. The blame not only lies on the administration but also on California as a state. This is because it passed a law prohibiting public university from considering ethnicity, sex and race during the admission process. This resulted to an immense decrease in African American enrollment. Statistics show that in 2006, out of 5000 enrollment, only 96 were African American. Majority of university students are whites even though affirmative action is put in place to serve those discriminated in the society. Unfortunately, people of color have had to suffer discrimination all their lives. Media views African American males as pawns instead of scholars very evident in relation to their population in Universities (Wilson, Lena and Félix 204).
A lot of criticism comes along with the way African Americans address their grievances. Most people do not see the relevance when they fight for equality basing on skin color. For instance, the label “black bruins” refers to Africa American males. The society views them as pawns, robbers and violent gang. In 1969, there was an assassination of a group of black students inside Campbell hall in UCLA. The assassination was of less concern; however, it attracted global attention because it presented as a confrontation which involved Africa American students. Most of them convicted as guilty since they involved themselves in violent organizations (Sy Stokes, 2013).
Bothered by increasing complaints, lawsuits and grievances and about racial bias, intolerance and discrimination at UCLA, the university’s leadership team last year convened an independent committee to assess and investigate the university’s state of affairs with respect to racial relations. The committee spent quite a long time investigating UCLA’s policies, measures and mechanisms for dealing with apparent bias. It also conducted interviews in-depth with the university’s employees. Through investigations, it is evident that the most university polices are vague. Furthermore, the remedial procedures are hard to access and are essentially nonexistent. Necessary and affirmative actions are created yet the authorities that made the policies end up muting them. This is because they believe that America is free beyond racial inequity. The inequity rises from history of slavery where those subjugated were property. Slaves in simple terms were brought from Africa and their grand children are the current Africa Americans (Sy Stokes, 2013).
American’s history on slavery has a great impact to today’s racism enigma, which created a barrier long ago among people of different skin color and it became an inevitable culture. Poverty level remains prominent since they were and still are low class in America. The segregation continues to a level where some institutions consider the blacks as people who cannot be scholars (Hancock, The Blind Side).
Racism
Racial dissertation may be interpreted as academic, legalistic, scientific, bureaucratic, cultural, economic, linguistic, mythical, religion, or ideological. There has been a widespread racist expressions and discourse. Racism exists in different localities and at different times under varying conditions. American society has clearly developed two class systems explained by Marx in his Marxist theory: society has two classes: the exploited and the exploiters. He stresses that one class will eventually overpower the other using any indispensable means (Wilson, Lena and Félix 224).
Michael did not like the idea of recruitment to football team as he thought he was exploited especially the bad stories about the schools that they opted for him. This scared him away since he thought they would bury him alive. He opted to leave Leigh’s home and went back to his mother’s apartment where he met his old friends. At times, fights arose, as they talked ill of his foster parents (Hancock, The Blind Side).
Leigh Anne does not stop looking for Michael. They finally meet and Leigh Anne assures him she will uphold any decision he had. He ends up selecting Ole Miss since his whole went there. Finally, he enrolls to the Ole Miss campus to start college. The movie ends emotionally as Leigh Anne bids Michael goodbye. This shows that despite Leigh being a white, he loves and cares for an Africa American (Hancock, The Blind Side).
The U.S. Media and Racism
Media has greatly divided the working class and labeled young African-American males as drug dealers, pawns and gangsters. This results to elites viewing them as incapable of becoming scholars. Through such treatment, media has trampled youths' future prospects for advancement and employment. It has focused mostly on the negative features of the black community like, criminal activity, drug use and abuse as well as welfare abuse. It also supports the elite in maintaining the cycle of poverty among the color people (Hancock, The Blind Side).
Journalist make their own production since they have the freedom to choose on what to present to the audience as well as no universally recorded and accepted rules or codes to govern them. The media devote much space and time to detail the wounded and little time to describe African-Americans background problems. Racial issues get quick news media response with keen attention to the controversies and conflict of the stories. They are interested in stories that portray a bad picture of an Africa American instead of exposing exploitation ant stigma they face (Wilson, Lena and Félix 207).
The Riots
Education, poverty, urbanization, and other elements have an important direction on positions of the black community. Media portrayal of the 1992 Los Angeles riot shows that it was because of lethal economic decline, political lethargy and cultural decay in American life yet racism was very evident. Race was the conspicuous catalyst and not the underlying reasons spelt by the media. This event encouraged the insight that the color community was exclusively responsible for the disturbances and riots (Wilson, Lena and Félix 217).
The daily tensions of black exploitation and existence are crucial concerns of the Africa-American, which are not of any concern to the whites. The reason as to why racial stereotype is inadequately covered is that black’s condition is of no importance or interest to the majority whites in U.S. Their interest in black America becomes of importance when focused upon circumstances where their real problem is fear. Events such as civil rights demonstrations, boycotts, pickets, and predominantly racial violence marks the importance of black activity hence impinges on white people’s concerns (Jakubowicz and Heather 233).
Research has disclosed that a very small proportion of African-American youth, some 8% commit most serious crimes like rape, robbery, homicide, and assault in cities. The tendency to quote all African-American males as criminals continues because the media is present to emphasize on that. This has resulted to law officers harassing black males due to this stereotype hence affecting the black community together with their prospects for advancement and employment. Media spearheads all this hence contributed to high unemployment in the African-American community. Existence of Racism in this era is neocolonialism since people lack freedom in their country.
Works Cited.
Jakubowicz, Andrew, and Heather Goodall. Racism, Ethnicity and the Media. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1994. Print.
Wilson, Clint C, Lena M. Chao, and Félix Gutiérrez. Racism, Sexism, and the Media: The Rise of Class Communication in Multicultural America. Thousand Oaks [u.a.: SAGE Publ, 2003. Print.
Sy Stokes. “The Black Bruins.” Web. 5th Dec. 2013 http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhrNTt8tw16Kt9Pu54
The Blind Side. Dir. Hancock John Lee. Evolution of a Game, 2009. Film.
