Race in the Media: The Progressive Solution to White Supremacy

A main argument presented in the New York Times bestseller The New Jim Crow is that “In the era of color blindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt.” This “color blindness” has permeated many aspects of American life.

Children of color in America grow up in a world without characters that they can fully identify with; they watch their favorite movies on repeat wondering why the Barbie-esque, blue-eyed characters were always the protagonists and why the featured characters who actually looked like them were reduced to a stereotype. Filmmaker Pratibha Parmar comments on the crucial role images play in defining the social power to which marginalized groups have and how imagery acts as an ideology that determines people’s self-perception. Without the properly diverse representation in the media, people of color are left feeling inferior.

A study published in the academic journal Communication Research further supports the idea that images have an ideological intent. The results of this year-long study seemed almost common sense: television exposure resulted in a decrease in self-esteem among black boys and girls and in an increase in self-esteem in white boys. In order to stop media’s constant reinforcement of racial stereotypes, change will have to start with the people running the media, not the consumers.

Consumers have grown accustomed to the white-supremacy sprinkled throughout mainstream culture, yet if they simply take a step outside they would be bombarded with whitewashed billboards, magazines, television, and movies.

Color-blind casting is a popular buzzword that promises to further diversify Hollywood, arguing for actors to be cast into roles without consideration of their race. An article from The Atlantic focuses on the “color-blind casting success story” that has happened to the Oscar Isaac, an actor of Cuban and Guatemalan descent. High-budget films like the ones he has starred in, Ex Machina and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, rarely cast actors of color in lead or even secondary roles, but color-blind casting has given actors like Isaac to reach high levels of inclusion and acknowledgment within the film industry. But is this technique giving actors of color the recognition they deserve in the right way?

While the immediate benefits of color-blind casting are unmistakable, the underlying messages and long-term effects have severe consequences. Angelica Jade Bastièn states that “color-blind casting might land a few promising actors prestigious roles, but it isn’t a sustainable strategy: It neither addresses the systemic problems that exist behind the camera nor does it compel Hollywood to tell more racially aware stories.”  The most obvious negative contribution of color-blind casting is the allowing of white actors to portray non-white characters, normalizing whitewashing. While white actors are being praised for their lead performances due to increased screen time given to them as a birthright, production companies are getting praised for diversity when they cast secondary characters of color. This slotting of minority actors into characters purely derived from stereotypes is a pathetic excuse for diversity. The argument that fixing the race problem in the media by ignoring it, is completely counterintuitive. Color-blind casting, in practice, isn’t a form of progress or acceptance; color-blind casting is a form of erasure. Luckily there are solutions to fix this theme of discrimination that involves the equal contribution of everyone.

To begin with, there need to be more opportunities for black directors and writers to share their story. bell hooks comes to the realization that “unless we [the black community] transform images of blackness... we cannot make radical interventions that will fundamentally alter our situation.” However, responsibility for this solution can’t only be put onto the black community. It actually needs to more heavily involve non-black allies that embrace and celebrate the concept of black subjectivity.

Enthusiasm towards creating characters of color who perform actions rather than having actions performed on them is a necessary start in creating more authentic roles. Black subjectivity would look like characters who have enough depth to demand power in order to achieve their desires. As a whole, the American population must begin to think critically about images and take risks in order to develop revolutionary attitudes about race and representation in every community to ensure the self-worth of the coming generations.