Race Tokens

It's currently 9:30 on a Wednesday night, so be honest, how many of you are curled up on your couch watching your favorite Network TV drama air in prime time. I know I would be if I wasn't sitting here typing this blog post. But while you are watching, consider this, is there a minority character in your TV show, and if so are what is their role in the show and how are they portrayed?

My new favorite obsession is a show that ended a just a year ago called 90210 and it is set in an almost all white neighborhood with its plot centered around the Beverly Hills High School. The main character is the girl pictured in the brown ruffled shirt in the center. She is a high school student named Annie and her brother Dixen is the African American boy pictured at her right. He was actually adopted into their family when he was eight years old because of his troubled family life.

I did not realize this until we discussed "TV tokenism" or the rare gesture of offering equal opportunities to the minorities as to the majorities, but these "token" minorities are often added into shows as a way for Networks to prove to their buyers, the advertisement companies, that they can appeal to viewers in minorities and will not seem racist. 

In class we talked about how these "token minorities" often find themselves being deliberately cast in the prestigious "buddy" role that is to always keep the main character in line. This is because the networks are afraid of being criticized for playing the minority in anything less than a prestigious and well respected character because of the fact that in the past the minorities have only received roles as thugs or gang members. This "buddy" character does not usually have that much of a complex background story or different problems in his life. This is exactly how Dixen's role in 90210 plays out. He is always helping Annie out when she goes off the deep end and does something rash. Also, for the first season and a half we do not learn anything about Dixen's life before Beverly Hills, all we are told is that he was adopted.
You can even see this "token minority role" displayed in the cast photo above because Dixen is pictured above Annie's right shoulder, which is where you normally would see the good angel on someone's shoulder guiding them to do the right thing. 

Dixen is Annie's good conscience.

I think the minority character is too often stuck in this role of the token, and that is the role that no actor wants to be cast as. The sad thing too is that no one in society notices it, and I think to myself that I wouldn't have noticed it either if I had not been told. We need to open our eyes and be more critical as a society in America today of our media and the affect it has on certain minority groups and everyone watching as well because that is the first step to change: awareness.

Correctional or Destructional

In America today we make up 5% of the worlds population yet we hold 25% of the world's prisoners. Am I the only one horrified by those numbers?

Bruce Western, a Harvard student, is conducting a study of our country's correctional system and how it affects those who emerge from it. Western interviewed an ex-inmate named Jerry and Jerry admitted to having trouble sleeping because he was so used to the prison quarters. Jerry confessed in the interview, "“It’s like my body left the prison, but my mind is still in there." According to Western, "subjects have said they simply can’t cope on the outside—that going back to prison seems comforting and familiar"

I find it incredible that a prison cell could be referred to as "comforting and familiar," meaning reassuring and intimate or personal. These are words that are frequently saved for describing your own home so it is shocking to me that someone could ever feel at home in a prison. However these inmates are forced to because since they are spending so much time there they slowly lose their connections to the outside world. Western explains that, "Prison time strains relationships with partners and children, and the men often live separately after their release." Some even end up homeless because of financial problems stemming from unemployment.

To top it all off, the people who end up in prisons are most likely troubled in ways that don't stem from a need to kill or murder or rape, they stem from something that is above their control. The nonprofit Human Rights Watch found that 56 percent of U.S. inmates are mentally ill.
at least two-thirds are thought to have substance-abuse problems.

The 2.2 million inmates living in America today require actual help maybe with a substance problem or a mental illness so we shouldn't just stick them behind bars and let them waste their life away as we forget about them, we should put them in a place where they will actually get help. They need rehab or a facility that can take care of their illnesses and problems so that all the fathers out there can be reunited with sons, and mothers to daughters and relationships and precious lives can be salvaged.

The New Feminist

A few weeks ago Kelly Clarkson was asked during an interview with time magazine if she was a feminist yet she quickly batted it down, saying, "No, I wouldn’t say feminist — that’s too strong. I think when people hear feminist, it’s like, “Get out of my way, I don’t need anyone." 

She was afraid to admit to being a feminist because it was too strong of a word, an extreme that she didn't want to be associated with. She even gave a very negative connotation to the word by saying that it was associated with people who "don't need anyone," or aren't connected to other human society. Also, by saying it means "get out of my way," she acts like a feminist is someone who thinks they are better than other people. 

Clarkson even added something at the end of her answer for her reason why she was not a feminist, saying,"I love that I’m being taken care of, and I have a man that’s a leader." Personally, I think that is sickening. If this popular icon in the media believes that she should have a man who is a leader, or someone who takes charge and controls the situation, that implies that she is the follower and does not have any power and is simply ordered around. Celebrities are people who many people look up to, or at least take a strong interest in, and this is a bad message to send to woman everywhere. 

Other prominent female celebrities of today, such as Lady Gaga and Beyonce, have expressed similar views. Rachel Hills from the Daily Life wrote in an article 2 weeks ago, "if you ask a female celebrity if she is a feminist, she will politely demure, insisting that she “loves men,” “doesn’t like labels,” and that if she had to pick a label, she’d prefer “humanist."

Hills has a valid point because this description seems to match Kelly Clarkson's comment perfectly. Clarkson denied being a feminist because the label was just "too strong," as well as mentioning the fact that she loved men, or that men take care of her.

Hills says that these celebs would rather be "humanists" or people who are very interested in human welfare, versus a "feminist," or someone who a person who advocates rights of woman equal to those of men. This means that they are willing to accept the fact that humanity as a whole should treat each other equally, but does this mean that these strong women do not believe that within humanity women deserve the same rights as men?  These extremely popular female celebrities are setting an example for so many other people worldwide. It makes me question whether they don't recognize the fact that women are not entirely equal to men in our society today and like Clarkson are accepting being the "follower," or if they recognize this and are just unwilling to fight for change.

I don't know which is worse.

Stop and Frisk Profile- Darker skin required

Just a month ago in a court ruling the NYPD Stop and Frisk program that had been going on for 10 years was officially unconstitutional and violated the 4th amendment. That amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons... against unreasonable searches, shall not be violated... but upon probable cause.

This clearly states that the police can only search with a probable cause, which means the NYPD must have a reason or grounds to justify the search because they suspect they will find something. 

Apparently the legal system did not find that being a race of black or hispanic proved probable cause enough to justify the stopping of a pedestrian to search for weapons or other contraband. 

There has been a lot of controversy over the profile of a person who is stopped for these random searches. I would put money on the fact that you won't see a 5 year old girl with a lollipop the size of her head being stopped and searched for weapons. An astounding 87% of those stopped were black or hispanic, where only 10% of these stops result in an arrest and it is extremely rare that they will find a weapon. 

This means that 90% of the time these searches are simply for no reason, and we can never be sure if the police officer did suspect something because we don't know what he is thinking but I would hope that his gut isn't that bad at guessing. US district judge Shira Sheindlin said on this subject, "The city and its highest officials believe that blacks and Hispanics should be stopped at the same rate as their proportion of the local criminal suspect population," however then she commented, "But this reasoning is flawed because the stopped population is overwhelmingly innocent - not criminal." 

Sheindlin is saying that the these New York officials justify their support of the the stop and frisk of blacks and hispanics over other races is because in those areas the crime rates of those races are higher. This means that these officials are just acting on stereotypes. It is not fair to more heavily police one area just because some of those people happen to get into some trouble. We cannot just assume that all the people in that area are therefore going to be criminals then. Also, obviously if you stop and frisk 10 hispanics for every white person you stop and frisk, the odds say that you will find more weapons and such with the hispanic, simply because you have rolled the dice 10 more times. This could lead the public to believe that hispanics are more criminal because they were caught with more weapons when in reality they were just singled out on a stereotype. 

I'm grateful that this unconstitutional practice has ended for the time being, and hopefully it will stay that way. Do you the practice of "stop and frisk"generally kept the public safer or just discriminated against minorities? 

Queen Bee Syndrome

I'm sure all you girls have seen this hilarious classic, "The Devil Wears Prada," and even you boys have probably seen your sisters and mothers watching is and stayed to watch for a while because it's so good. This clip is showing Andy Sachs, or Anne Hathaway, at her first day on the job as the assistant to the editor of a fashion magazine. Her coworkers are trying to show their ideas of clothing lines to her boss Miranda Priestly, or Meryl Streep, but Miranda is making rude remarks back and is proving to be extremely hard to impress. Andy let's out a giggle on accident at the ridiculous spectacle her new boss is putting on and suddenly Miranda sharply turns towards her and just rips her apart. Miranda criticizes her fashion sense and even her her competence in the workplace. 

Modern female bosses are almost always portrayed in this light as the terrible "queen bee" of the office who demands an excessive amount of work from her assistants, is rude to everyone in the workplace and works at the expense of anyone around her to succeed. There are countless examples of the queen bee of the workplace in the media, including in popular movies like Margaret Tate from The Proposal. Can you think of a movie where the female boss is a nice, caring young woman who does wonders for the workplace? I certainly can't.

One article even gives a name to this stereotype of the female boss in the workplace, calling it the "Queen Bee Syndrome," and defining it as, "The alpha female who tries to preserve her power at all costs," and instead of supporting her younger coworkers, "she feels threatened by them and ends up obstructing their attempts to climb the corporate ladder."  

The words "threatened" and "obstructing" both have very negative connotations as they refer to someone who lives in constant fear that the people around them intend to do them harm, which is almost never the case in our modern day workplace, and she has the intention of "obstructing" or making the lives of her colleagues more difficult instead of working collaboratively with them. 

American media is perpetuating this stereotype of the "queen bee syndrome" and affecting the way all female bosses are viewed, even to their own gender. As you can see from this previous post on female bosses in the workplace, we need to increase the numbers of women in high professional positions and stereotypes like this one can only hurt the chances. As a woman myself striving to one day have a future in the business world we need to open our eyes and realize what kind of effect things in the media like this have on our American society. 

What other stereotypes do you see being perpetuated in American media? 

Feel free to comment your thoughts! 

How many woman CEOs do you know?

The recent best seller on Amazon in the Business Management and Leadership section addressed this issue and it is "Lean in," by the successful COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg. It discusses how women are are underrepresented in the top positions of their careers and Sandberg encourages woman to do their best top break through the barriers that they put up or may just be naturally there in society holding them back from reaching their full potential.

Her book has been very successful, however, it has received a lot of criticism because of the fact that she comes from a positions of power and money and may not be representing all woman in America and also because she "puts the burden on women to change," instead of, "challenging the institutional and cultural factors that present extra challenges for women."
One example the cultural factors that cause extra challenges for women is the fact that there is not a reliable form of day care set up for women in the work place. This can hold them back because you cannot be as productive as you would like to be if you are constantly worrying if your child is receiving the proper amount of care. This also sheds some light on how much our American culture values child care, because some other countries around the world, for example some in Europe, have a much more reliable system of day care in place for working mothers.

 Just like how Sandberg talks about how women are underrepresented in management of their professions, right now on the 2013 Fortune 1000 list of companies only 4.5% of the CEO positions are held by woman. For American women like me striving to have a future in the business world this number could use some major improvement.

I think that she is right about putting some burden on women to change because there are some social barriers that we woman put up ourselves like not going into fields that men usually dominate or not striving for the highest position in our field because of the fact that men have normally held them in the past. However, the burden cannot fall only on women to make a change, it also has to fall on those "institutional and cultural factors" that the article above mentions.
These extra challenges that women face are the fine print in women's rights that need to be scrutinized under a magnifying glass and corrected if women are going to have complete equal opportunity as men in American society.

What is one extra challenge you can think of that women face in American society today?

Feel free to leave your thoughts :)

Standardized? Or standard for the affluent?

Why did I wake up yesterday, on saturday morning, at 6:50am? The dreaded ACT, that's why.

However, I came out of that test thinking, wow that was terrible, but it's ok because I can just take it again. But, I was talking to my parents after taking the test and was shocked to find out that they took the test only once and with no tutoring, that was it. Flashback to the very first practice test I took with my ACT tutor and how poorly I thought I had scored. I made huge strides of improvement just by practicing and taking the test many different times with a tutor, but does everyone have that luxury?

In reality, many students in the US today are not capable of taking the ACT more than once and would never even be able to consider the use of ACT prep tools, at least not to the extent that I see used in my neighborhood. 

In an article in Education Week, Kohn states on the subject of test prep, "Affluent families, schools, and districts are better able to afford such products... exacerbating the inequity of such testing...Poorer schools manage to scrape together the money." 

More affluent school districts have a major advantage with this extra test prep available to them, while the poorer school districts can barely "scrape together the money," or gather it laboriously and with much difficulty. This simply "exacerbates" or severely increases the "inequity" or inequality of the tests because the rich have a huge advantage.

The result of this sad phenomenon is that these scores on the ACT and other standardized tests ultimately have a big effect on the college you will be able to attend. The more affluent students will be able to attend a more prestigious university with generally more career opportunities available to them simply because of one standardized evaluation, while the poorer communities will either not get to attend college or not be admitted to the college of their choice. The college or no college they decide to attend then limits the opportunities that they have available to them as a career. This one number, 19,23,36 can end up defining their career and ultimately their life.

I believe that these standardized tests should not carry so much weight on the fate of someone's future if they create such unequal opportunity. They should be part of a college's consideration but maybe not such a large part because they does not show exactly how much potential a student truly has. Just because one student received more ACT tutoring than the other does not mean that that student is smarter or a better candidate for a certain university. 

What are some other possible solutions to reduce the inequality of "standardized" testing? 

Feel free to comment! ;)