Robert M. Entman
Young Men of Color in the Media: Images and Impacts
Although a few highly visible African Americans have reached positions of high status, income, and power in the United States, most blacks still live separately from whites, and significantly lag behind whites in terms of income, housing, health, and education.1 Other non-white groups, including Latinos, Asians,and Native Americans, also rank lower than whites on many measures of living conditions and opportunities, and tend to live in ethnic enclaves. Of all those not classified as members of the dominant white group, young men of color (YMC) are particular objects of stereotyping, fear, anger, misunderstanding, and rejection. Indeed, public attitudes and emotions restrict their lives and keep them from enjoying the full range of opportunities and benefits of American society.
The way the media operate, the images they produce, and the influence they exert significantly affect the life chances of these young men. This report assesses the media's impacts, with a particular focus on the variety of ways they perpetuate negative impressions of young men of color, the reasons that this perpetuation of negative impressions occurs, and potential paths to reform and improvement.
Specific issues covered here include:
1. The negative biases in portraying YMC across most media—biases that are often subtle (and therefore difficult to notice and
counteract), rather than blatant
2. The impacts of the negative images on whites, on white-dominated institutions, on politics and public policy, on society in
general, and on YMC
3. Explanations for continuing biases despite improvements in the visibility and depictions of persons of color
4. Public and private policy changes that might reduce the deleterious influences of the media in this sphere and promote more positive contributions to the lives of YMC and to society at large
Challenging and changing the media will be a vital component in the larger effort of the Joint Center Health Policy Institute to establish a “Fair Health” movement to provide people of color with equal opportunities for healthy lives. The connection between cultural stereotypes and ignorance among the majority of white Americans on the one hand, and the treatment and life chances of non-whites on the other, is well established. People of color experience systematic discrimination in a range of areas, including the delivery of public education and other services, job hiring and promotion, housing opportunities, and treatment by the police and criminal justice system. All of these, in turn, affect individuals’ physical and mental health. For instance, unemployment and underemployment take severe tolls on health, and discrimination makes unemployment and underemployment worse. Compounding this problem, persons of color at every income level tend to receive inferior medical care compared with whites.
The connection between the media and these negative interrelationships is this: the media are among the most powerful sources of mental impressions that people form of categories of out-groups. Thus, for instance, under ambiguous conditions, a white police officer—even a well-meaning one— may react differently to seeing a young man of color than to a white young man. That reaction—perhaps to shoot rather than waiting just one more moment to assess the situation—may be rooted in large part in a lifetime of exposure to media images that construct the prototypical YMC as more dangerous than the prototypical young white male. Analogous reactions can arise from white teachers dealing with students of color, white doctors dealing with patients of color, and even, sadly, from some persons of color dealing with others of color. Such is the generally unconscious power of the images in our minds— images often placed there or reinforced by the media.
There are also aggregate-level effects from misperceptions held by the dominant white group, which frequently assumes that government programs in areas such as health or education are largely designed to help undeserving minorities at the expense of the majority. Whites’ misunderstandings are reflected in reduced public support for ameliorative programs, and the ensuing cuts in programs further diminish the health and other life conditions of YMC.
Related Links
