Isn't T.V. sensational?!

"Gangland" is a popular program on the History Channel. "Gangland" features a new location, new gang, or a new aspect of gang culture every Thursday night so we can all "experience" the nitty gritty of gang life from the comfort of our living rooms.
Recently "Gangland" did a feature on Oakland, well, actually they did two. I have never seen the show create two episodes featuring one city in this back-to back type manner but they found a way to justify it through the course of the two episodes. The first episodes seemed to feature nothing but "Black" male gangs as all the people interviewed and shown for black males. The second episode showed just Latin male gangs. Apparently, neither women nor white people bang.
As I was watching this with a friend from Sacramento, he said, "Dang, Oakland really gets down, huh? I'm not surprised.". My initial response was, "Yeah...I guess so." as I thought, wow, i really should be more careful. But as the show continued and then the second episode started I continued to see areas that I spent time in and neighborhoods that my friends lived in and I realized just how much propagandist crap was being spewed.
"Gangland" made it seem as if every male of color in Oakland was a gangbanger with an insatiable blood lust. I was furious! Oakland definitely has some gang issues and some real issues with crime in general but this show demonized Oakland so thoroughly that I have friends who have seen the show who are now concerned about their safety in neighborhoods they have lived comfortably in for years!
This is not only ridiculous but also grossly irresponsible. I understand T.V. is a business and they have to make their money but at the same time creators of documentary shows like "Gangland" have a responsibility to present a slightly less skewed version of reality than a fictional show such as "Lost" would. We as viewers, also have a responsibility to ask questions, check sources and think critically about the "information" served to us everyday.
When you see a T.V. show please ask, What is the subcontext of the show? What are the values and ideals they are trying to feed me? In what way are they trying to alter/control my view on the subject matter? Who benefits? Who pays?

The Black/White Paradigm

I recently read an article entitled "Smells like Racism" by Rita Chowdury Sethi. In this article Sethi explains how racism in the U.S. has become a "caricature" of it's former self. Racism is no longer about institutions of power denying equal opportunity to people of color, according to Sethi racism has evolved to only include the Black/White binary.

Essentially, that means that if the race based incident does not include a White person harming or hindering a Black person then it does not count. Sethi furthers her discussion by incorporating how this narrow idea of racism affects Asians. Sethi provides clear and convincing examples to illustrate her theory but I would rather not go into detail. To me, the most interesting part of the article is the angry dialogue it inspires.

The point of this article was to move beyond the blame game, and what many people have dubbed the "oppression olympics" , to establish a dialogue between people of color. Unfortunately this has not happened, instead I ended up in a discussion regarding the animosity between Black and Korean groups in Los Angeles. Violence against Koreans was justified, Asians were called "shifty and secretive" and I was told that since I was in America I should get with the "American way". Silly me, I thought we were a nation of immigrants...I guess I have no clue as to what the "American way" is.

This is social control at it's finest. The dominant group no longer needs to persecute and tear apart the subordinate groups in society, they are happy to do it to one another. We have all subscribed to the racial hierarchy set forth in U.S. "culture" and are more than willing to do the work of the master.

Goggle it!

Today for a fun little experiment, I decided to take a look at google images. I typed three different terms into google images and I yielded three very interesting pictures in return.

In an effort to be as balanced as possible I did decide on a method prior to my experiment: I would enter my terms one at a time and select either the first or second image that was yielded. (All images are discussed from left to right)

The first picture is of musician Snoop Doggy Dog walking down the MTV video music awards red carpet with two women on leashes. This photo was the first to come up in google images under the search "Black Women".

The second picture is of women in military uniforms armed and marching in form. This photo was the second to come up in google images under the term "Korean Women". I chose an ethnic group rather than a racial group in this instance because...well, I'm Korean and I was curious as to how I was being represented.

The third picture is of a white women who just gave birth to a child that appears to be of mixed race descent when clearly the white man standing next to her is her husband, who seems very surprised at the skin tone of the child.

Now, clearly there is a lot to be said of these images and how controlling images shape the lives of women and men (I did this for men too, it's very interesting!). I'm not at all surprised by the images I found for both Black and Korean women but the image I pulled up for White women was initially, a bit surprising. But...then again, I had an expectation for Black women and Korean women but I had no expectation for White women, I'm ashamed to say that I threw that one in more as a control group then for anything else. I guess that is exactly why many groups should be considered in any experiment.

Upon further contemplation of the White women image I came to the conclusion that this picture is more a testament to the fear of the "corruption" of White women by Black men more than an actual reflection of White women. Of course, the same can be said for the other two images, Black women are depicted as overtly sexual and animalistic (Patricia Hill Collins expands this idea in a wonderfully readable way in her book Black Feminist Thought) and Korean women are sexual but in a very reserved and militant way which makes perfect sense considering the political climate of today.

I wonder what do you think??