Following the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines
Arguing over Images: Native American Mascots and Race
Many universities and other schools in the U.S. use the American Indian's motives as their symbols or mascots. This paper aims at collecting and analyzing regular people's views on these symbols and mascots. People assign some meanings to these mascots and their comprehension are based on their believes and some other cultural factors.
Mostly animal symbols of the Indian Americans are used as mascots. Just a few mascots are designed to tease the Indian Americans by using caricaturized versions of the symbols. The interviewers do not have a perfect information of the mascots used in the universities. They give different meanings to the mascots depending on their believes and their cultural backgrounds.
Some people assumes that the use of mascots are honoring American Indians, because other people use their symbols for their teams indicating bravery and other honorful meaninings. Most of the people who were interviewed for this study supports this belief. Some other people think that these symbols are universal values and the use of these symbols should not be involved with the Indian Americans. Thus anyone anywhere might use these symbols and no meaning should not be assigned to them. A few interviewers have more racist approach to the use of mascots and they believe that the Indian Americans have lost the fight against the Euro-Americans and the Euro-Americans can tease the Indian Americans by using the Indian symbols and mascots.
Consequently, the study shows the some interviewers might have a racist approach to the mascots and they relate the mascots with a negative understanding. However, most of the interviewers do not think that the use of the American Indian symbols as mascots of universities is not an assault to the American Indians. Even it is possible to say that the use of mascots is not directly related to the American Indians.
Racism does not have to be an open assault to an ethnic group, sometimes some social values might make feel us that we are respectable to other cultures. However, no one can be sure whether an action is an assault to the people belonging to a certain ethnic group. To evaluate the interviews to understand whether people's comprehension of the mascots are racist or not, we need to create a criteria depending upon the American Indians' comprehension. By using this criteria, we will have a base to develop this study.
What is in a Name?: Framing the Immigration Story
The U.S. is a country that most of the people have immigrated in different years during the last century. Still many people around the world wants to immigrate to the U.S., because people believe that this country has many opportunities and comfortable life. However, there is an important problem the American people faces: some immigrants are not accepted by the community and they have been called as illegal immigrants. Many Americans believe that these people come to the U.S. And use social services, infrastructures and other public services supplied to the citizens without paying any tax. Also they do take some jobs by accepting lower wages and no insurance, and that causes a biased competition in the labor market for the Americans.
There is no consensus among the American People on one framing for these immigrants. Many people considers that these immigrants' action create a negativity on the American citizens and they frame these immigrants as illegal. However, on the other side these immigrants help the American community also, because they do many jobs that many Americans do not want to do. These jobs are some simple jobs paying little wages. For some businessmen, these immigrants mean cheap workers. Consequently, some people frame these immigrants as workers who help the American economy and community.
Another frame that study expresses is in terms of national security. Many people from the neighbor countries can easily enter the U.S. and that means anyone who wants to do some actions which might threaten the national security. Maybe many of them does not have such intensions, however illegal immigration shows that there is a deficiency in the borders that might create many troubles for the national security.
Finally, considering the immigration to the U.S. have many different dimensions. As we know that all the U.S. citizens are immigrants from other places in different times, framing them only as illegal immigrants will not provide us a proper result. Instead, we need to develop the different dimensions of the immigration and manage it to make the immigrants contribute to the U.S.
Confronting the Front Pages: A Content Analysis of U.S. Newspapers
Media is one of most powerful tools to create believes, information and social structure in a community. This study analyzes how the newspapers in the U.S. Use the woman figure in the news. Women in the news, advertisements and other parts of newspapers are mostly defined as white, thin, beatiful, and attractive. This stereotype of woman is idealized. There only a few exceptions to this: a fat woman or a black woman in the news.
Another important fact shows us that the media mostly uses more men in their publications and men are granted the leading position in their stories and women are mostly playing a role of influenced person by the men's actions.
Many people read these news and it seems like that most of the readers are accepting whatever influence given to them. The media gives some beliefs to the community hidden or explicitly in their news and maybe only a few people are aware that the media is pushing these believes to them. Most of the people are not aware what message the media conveys to them and unconciously they accept this.
As we see in the study, the media can shape thee values of the society and by doing this the media can shape the community and the social relations. For example, most of the men in the U.S. believes that thin and white women are more beatiful than fat and black women or other women. However, we know that in some other countries fat women or black women are accepted as beatiful and thin women are considered as having poor health. There are many immigrants in the U.S. and each country has actually a different set of values for being beatiful. But when these immigrants come to the U.S., they also starts believing that thin and white women are more beatiful. This situation proves us that the media has the power to change social values, social relations and subsequently the community.
REFERENCES
Dropek, S. (2011). Race, Ethnicity, and Me: Autobiographical Reflections by Trinity University Students.Trinity University.
Ayton-Shenker, D. (1995). The Challenge of Human Rights and Cultural Diversity. United Nations Background Note.
