Racism in new media

In recent years, new media have provided people with a new platform not only for entertainment but as a means to express their views on issues such as racism. It used to be print and talk back radio which limited the number of people as only those who had the time would call in to the radio, and only those of leadership/powerful roles had a chance to get on the papers. However, the new anonymity that comes with new media allows people to say things that they would never usually say in real life or face to face. New media offers a broader framework for similar social movements. This opens up a whole world of space for racism to take advantage of.

A local example of this is the Maori personalised plate where people posted racist comments such as "Maybe donate half the money to a charity to help prevent Maoris throwing their babies onto walls?" The whole comment section was plagued with comments like these. An international example would be racist websites such as kkk.com or stormfront.com where so called "white nationalists" would gather and discuss white supremacy.

New media allows a free/cheap platform for people from all over the world with similar interests to gather. However, I definitely do not condone or agree with promoting racism on the web. That having said, I think that we live in a free world and we should be able to freely express our sentiments as long as it is not malicious or harmful to anybody in any way.

Racial awareness and Bennetton

Racial awareness happens to everyone. One of the first things that we notice when we meet someone is their race and we use this to judge their personality, who they are as a person and their status. This is a mentality that is deeply rooted in our society and the way we understand race.

United Colors of Benetton illustrate racial awareness well in their advertisements. They are a clothing and textile company founded in 1965 by Luciano, Giuliana, Gilberto and Carlo. Their primary aim for their advertisements is to promote difference and hit audiences with a large dose of reality. Therefore all their advertisements are about worldly issues such as famine, the Gulf War, microcredit and violence, etc. Their advertisements have been criticised by the media and many critics.

This advertisement is the "food for life" campaign where Benetton joined a World Food programme to promote the importance of food.

This is another advertisement that they made:

Benetton shows that they target audiences as a collective with a diverse colour palette. They understand that race is a socially constructed way of differentiating human beings.

It is the hegemonic viewpoint that maintain a popular system of ideas and practices through the infiltration of education, media and religion. Benetton certainly goes against this thus causing controversy.

Being an ethnic minority myself, I am definitely behind Benetton in their controversial advertisements. But it makes me sick to my stomach that people have to go to such lengths just to prove that ethnic people are just as good as white people. It shouldn't be justified. It should just be.

stomp the yard

In recent years, many dance movies have been produced such as Stomp the Yard and Honey. These movies follow a common formula and fall under the category of Black movies and they are always comedic and to do with contemporary popular culture. This is a positive image of African Americans but it also connotes that Black people do not have anything else to offer other than their "coolness". This can be exemplified in dance movies such as Stomp the Yard where underprivileged kids do not study well, live in a bad neighbour and have nothing but their dance skills and succeed in life through dancing. This type of categorisation is very one-dimensional and stereotypes Black people. This is called the burden of representation where the group of people shown in the film is used to represent the entire race. Such characters have also been described as politically overburdened. The "mark of the plural" can be applied in this instance implying that all black people are the same and that any negative behaviour of the group is recognised as typical and indicative of backsliding towards some presumed negative essence. These films essentialise black people by stating that they aren't mentally capable of studying well but they are all good at dancing.

Stereotypes play a big role in these movies as a form of social control, also known as prisons of image. An image that black people are stuck with for as long as these movies are continued to be produced.