Does the Media Promote Racism?

Until the Friday morning before the Oscars, I never thought about race and gender as STILL being a huge factor in everyday life. I guess you could say that I am blind of gender and race because I tend to see people for what their capabilities are instead of what gender they are or what color skin they have. So, with the hype of the Oscars, there was a whole news segment about how so many of the nominees were black or a minority. In my opinion, I find this annoying. Personally, when I listened to Penelope Cruz announce the nominees, I didn't calculate the ratio of white to black actors. When a person's name was called, I pictured the movie they were in and their performance. Race never entered my mind! Don't get me wrong, I am happy that the human race is closer to appreciating everyone for who they are, instead of what they are, but isn't the whole goal of every civil rights group to become equal? I consider that to be the main goal, so how is news that millions of people tune into help this goal if the top news story is about African Americans taking over the Oscar nominee list? Why not take it for what it is and say the best actors in Hollywood are taking over the Oscars?

The Oscars are only one example out of many that support my case. I can also discuss the news about Obama and Hillary. The only good news story I can find about these two is on National Public Radio. NPR actually covers the potential these candidates hold to become the next President of the United States, instead of who will be the first black president or first woman president. Again, I am very excited to be living while history is in the making. My children will be reading history textbooks talking about Nancy Pelosi as well as the campaign of both Obama and Hillary. My only issue is some believe that the media is the "fourth branch of government", and I strongly agree. I am sure a lot of voters will vote for someone just because they want a woman for president. It could possibly mean that it doesn't have to be Hillary Clinton, it could be any woman. I've personally heard someone say that they voted for John Kerry over George W because Kerry was cuter. So, what does this say about the average American? Most of your average American's get their news and information from televising and radio. It's America's "most trusted news source", so why not? The downfall is boring news doesn't make good news. It has to be juicy and controversial to make people watch. Just as the AC world knows, you have to write about things that will catch the eye and interest of the reader. I understand how all of this works, it just hit me very strongly when I heard the news story on Friday about the Oscars and thought about it's content. The main goal was to discuss how more minorities were nominated for Oscars than whites. If they were wanting to develop an interesting news piece, couldn't they have went through and spotlighted each nominee and let the performance speak for itself. I'm not saying it is wrong to show how things are a lot better than the 1950's and 60's, I just thought that this story could have been presented in a better way. They could have found a better twist on the story than using segregation as a tool.

In conclusion, I am proud of all the actors who were nominated for the Oscars, they obviously have talent, and I urge all voting citizens to vote for the person best fit to be the president. Since you can not find many news stories that tell you the accomplishments of Obama and Hillary, check out www.votesmart.org and this site will give you all the information you need to make a wise decision.