Comments | inthewildworld: You are so BLACK.

inthewildworld

You are so BLACK.

Feb 18, 2010 23:11

Have you ever noticed that in the newspaper, if a black person achieves something, Media outlets will be like "African American Joseph Smith first man to fly solo" etc... But if its a white person, they'll just write the achievement in the headline. Well, this was the debate in Law In Action class, a lot of people were offended that newspapers' ( Read more... )

racism, controversy, culture, obama, media

Comments 9

so_sentimental February 19 2010, 05:01:25 UTC

i don't they need to do that. i mean if we're all equal, why does it matter what race a person is? then again, racism still exists today.

inthewildworld February 19 2010, 06:51:03 UTC

Exactly. I think we need to admit that racism is still a part of society, and I feel like mentioning African Americans' achievements sort of shows the world how far we've come. From he country that once feared assimilations of the races, to the country that is proud of the advances the diverse culture has made.

lillervillain February 19 2010, 07:31:21 UTC

I agree with what you're saying. Celebrating Obama's race goes a little way to at least highlighting the progress modern society has made towards removing racism from the world. Some people would call it positive prejudice but I wouldn't. At old job I had, there was this one guy I worked with who was not only lazy and constantly late, but a complete sexist, insulting pig, yet my boss wouldn't fire him because he was black, and because he didn't want the guy in question or everyone else to think he was discriminating against him because of his race. Which really, I think, is far more racist than if he had just fired him in the first place.

inthewildworld February 20 2010, 03:11:55 UTC

I'm not defending that person. That happens with every race, I doubt its just that race. My aunt owns a small business and she didn't fire someone like that because she was from her country... I'm saying that there is absolutely nothing wrong with mentioning someones race in a newspaper headline. It's a part of your identity and living in America doesn't change who you are.

lillervillain February 20 2010, 06:53:52 UTC

Oh, I know, lol, I was just pointing out an actual instance of race-related positive prejudice, whereas stating that a person is African-American in a newspaper article is nothing like that. I'm pretty sure that it's been proven time and time again that if a person is reading a book or an article about somebody and they don't see a photograph or an illustration of that particular somebody to go with it and their race is not specified, then the subject of the article is assumed to be white about 90% of the time. So unfortunately, distinctions such as the ones you were talking about are a necessity in most cases.

reminiscelife21 February 19 2010, 20:03:03 UTC

Agreed with the users here

I still notice that some people still say, "There goes that white boy walking by." or something like that, sometime these irritates me. Do we REALLY have to label people like that?

inthewildworld February 20 2010, 03:12:51 UTC

Thats different.. The only situation I identified in my entry was when they were mentioned in the press.

reminiscelife21 February 20 2010, 04:32:37 UTC

Yeah, I know but even though in the media, usually celebrities like Obama - the first black president - they're all humans so basically we're the same...

inthewildworld February 20 2010, 05:27:17 UTC

I think its about time they got recognized. I'm not saying they're better, but I think its not insulting when race is specifically mentioned. Now, If someone said "This race is better than that race" We have a problem. But I feel like it makes them proud to be African Americans when just a few decades ago they were treated like second class citizens and their achievements were not recognized. I think its about time they were.