Looking at present day western media, particularly in the US, is there an undercurrent of racism and xenophobia running through all their shows ? Granted, there are isolated examples, such as Glenn Beck comparing the ceremony of the Ganges river to a disease, and the constant religious profiling of muslims. But take the constant shifting of priorities even here in Australia, the great differences in headlines between the various newspapers, and the constant shifting of words. The priority given to "us" over "them", and I'm not talking only geographically. Morning shows and Current affairs shows, consistently single out ethnicities and focus on them disporportionately. A show returned to the same suburb in sydney, for at least 3 shows in one year. Why ? because it had people in it of Lebanese descent.
Oh please. remember when Katrina happened, white people were foraging and black people were looting? Yeah, the media is racist
The way race affects the media in my country is that they're all utterly terrified of doing or saying anything which anyone anywhere in the world might possibly perceive as even just a tiny bit racist or discriminatory. They are so terrified of any such perceptions or accusations that they do things like make sure every kids show has at least one black person and one Asian person, regardless of how demographically accurate or inaccurate it may be.
I think that's mostly correct. But I rather see it as like a pendulum ...the racism pendulum swings one way for several days/weeks, depending on particular stories, etc., but then swings back the other way as if to try to correct itself. But then along comes another racist-type story, and there goes the pendulum again! That back n' forth action is why this same topic comes up differnetly depending on the time of discussing the topic. But in answer to the main question; Yes, I think racism is an ever-present undercurrent in not only the media, but in life in general. I think the media is scared of accusations of racism, and I think the general public is scared of accusations of racism. And, yes, I think both go out of their way to be as ....non-racist.... as possible. Sciforums is a pretty good example of that fear .....topics about race are watched carefully and thoroughly. Even the hint of racism creeping into the thread, it's usually locked immediately. My guess is that this thread won't go very far .....sciforums just don't like talkin' about racism ...don't even like the word in the topics or in the titles! Baron Max
I believe that the media only uses events to manipulate the public by taking the issue to either one extreme or another. What really pisses me off is that the media very rarely ever tells anything about the victims, how they suffer or what happens to their lives after whoever kills their friends/ relatives does so. We mostly hear about the person who commits the crime but little as to what those who suffer must be going through.
Oh I disagree. The media often highlights the human cost and cover civilian suffering. I think if you look at BBC, Al Jazeera, the wire services and even CNN you will find stories on the cost of war from the perspective of locals.
People of the older generation (including my parents and in-laws) were overtly racist. It may take several generations for this to change provided there is proper integration. The trouble is black people try to maintain their African culture and language making it difficult to create a semi-homogeneous society. This is something that is not politically correct to say this and hence remains as the undercurrent of the society. This could get worse due to America becoming a banana republic.
is it only in westen media though? Look at the backlash against Australia over "the attacks on idian students" in the indian press. The police, legal experts and uni proffessors in criminology are all saying that the publicised attacks are not out of proportion to what would be expected for a population of its size in Melbourne and Sydney and yet we have media saying that its caused by racisium. I even herd one reporter (sadly i didnt catch the start so i couldnt work out who was speaking) saying that because crime is happerning against places students (in general, not specifically indian students i might point out) work at that means its automatically racist.
Perhaps, Lucy, but I don't think he, nor the OP, is talking about any particular war. I think it's more about normal life and crimes, not wars or international conflicts. But, hey, I could be wrong. Read the OP again for yourself, I don't want to make that assumption for you. Baron Max
The Indians student issue is very interesting one. For some reason there are similar incidents in UK against the Indians while USA is fairly calm except during Gulf War and just after 9/11 when idiots mistook Indians for Middle Easterners. In USA there are more Indian doctors in the Emergency Medical Centers. So the bottom of the society is exposed to them. Therefore it might be less of a issue. The middle section of the American society now exposed to Call Center personnel in India. So familiarity might be the reason, there are less such problems in The USA.
You missed my point, acording to all the experts in the area there is no indication of significat racial violence present in these attacks. They are just random crimes, as anyone who lives and works in these areas is exposed to be them Aborigional, Indian, chiness or Eropean. Everyone who lives anywhere is at some risk of crime (be it murder, or theft) thats just a sad fact of life and there is nothing to indicate that these are anything more than the random chance that goes with all these crimes. I have no idea how many australians would have been the victoms of the similar crimes over the same time period to give an example but i do belive the chief commissioners of the police forces when they state that the pattens and numbers are not out of the ordenry for "everyday" crime (as oposed to race inspired crime) in either numbers over the short term or over the longer term by demographic ect. If you get hit by a car and you happen to be indian that doesnt mean the car was a racist, its just a risk that is present (higher or lower depending where you are and what your doing but a risk none the less)
Notes Around Twenty-five years ago, people said political correctness was running amok in newspapers because some noted a disparity. It used to be that newspapers only listed people's ethnicity in arrest reports if they were nonwhite. And this actually had a striking effect. I mean, perhaps you or I might have been able to tell that, "police arrested a man in connection with ...", meant it was a white man, but into my late teens I used to hear people say, "Well, you don't read about white people committing crimes. It's always blacks and Mexicans in the newspaper." But, apparently, either listing white people as white, or skipping the ethnic and racial classifications altogether in the police blotters was political correctness run amok. • • • The issue was, as I recall, two photographs that ran over the wire services. One showed black people searching for food in the aftermath of the hurricane; one showed white people doing the same. The captions described the black people as looting, the white people as foraging. There was, as I recall, no real evidence within the frame that either were doing anything differently. • • • General Comment: I think the issue transcends race itself. There was an issue with NPR earlier this year when liberal bloggers got upset that the organization would never use the word "torture" to describe American acts of torture. They made the whole argument about how it isn't their place to judge, and if President Bush says we don't torture, we don't torture. Of course, when it was other nations that we aren't supposed to like—e.g., Iran, Egypt, &c.—it was torture, and not "enhanced" or "harsh" interrogation.
I agree with you. I disagree with the afro-american, latin-american etc. label. If you are a citizen of the USA you are an American. I see another part of the problem is minorities that label themselves (place whatever race you want here)-american in hopes of capatalizing on it.
Is it possible that there were a large number of "black" people looting compared to most "white" people? I read about some horrific, absolutely horrific stories of people. It really exposed the underbelly of American society. As for racial profiling, the simple fact is it works. Secondly, Muslims are not a "race". And the fact is, most Westerners (and Indians and Japanese and Chinese and Europeans and pretty much everyone else in the world) don't like the ideology of "Islam". It's really that simple. Most Westerners don't like the KKK either. Many do like Buddhism. Isn't that interesting? Concidering Buddism is generally practice by people of a different "race" and yet "Westerns" for some weird inexplicable reason (it's peaceful) find it a decent and respectable ideology. I can't remember the last time I read about a Buddhist terrorist trying to blow up an airliner of innocent people trying to return home to see their loved one's on Christmas. But sure enough, there's a Muslim trying to down another plane. A Muslim who was "radicalized" by guess what..... yup, your internal monologue is correct, radicalized by Islam. Ever see a Buddhist become "radicalized" by Buddhism? Didn't think so.
If the crime percentage towards the Indians are higher than the Indian population in that area, verses the general crime in the area, then that is not random. Do we have the data to back up such claim that it is in fact random? As to Katrina, white folks live in Mandeville (north of New Orleans) and make sure no black buys house there. Even the restaurants have very few black servers.
no, the figures wont be relaced by the federal goverments department of criminology for months. Which makes me wonder where the indian press are getting there infomation on normal rates of crime concidering there are over 1,000,000 indians living in Australia Both the NSW and Victorian Police commissioners have come out and said that these attacks are not overly representive for the size of the population of indian students OR out of the ordanry for normal crime levels actually make that month 2 years because the lastest homicide rate on the department of criminology website is 2007 This: is a rediculas and insulting comment concidering that i have not herd one comment made by india about the other murders commited in victoria against NON Indians as being racist Now these are 2007 figures but still http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/ECFAF68AB75AE9E3CA256DEA00053A5A im struggling to find any data on the ethnicity of victoms of ANY crime. I can find the other sorts of demgraphic date like age rates, gender, SES but not ethnic origions excepting aborigional and torris straight islanders. However nither can i find ANY data at all from those who push that there is an increase in vilonce specifically aimed at indians. Im willing to trust the police commisioners who DO have this sort of data infront of them that there is no evidence of a crime wave unless you can show some data which suggests there is. Rember that the Australian murder rates are so low that one death can swing them alarmingly if you dont actually look at the figures themselves. An example is the year Martin Bryant commited his masicure in Tassie, the murder rate APEARED to double that year but all the increase were his victoms. The Gangland killings are another example where 14 (from memory) murders over a 10 year period apeared to show that "Australia was becoming more violoent" yet it was purly a case of a short term gang war.
Fair enough. But clearly, Australia has more to lose by appearing racist given our "multicultural" reputation. To many foreigners, Australia is still seen as "rich, old white men" dominating jobs.
