Global Race Issues

Directions:
1. Click on the link below to see a larger version of this map.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/

2. Explore the map and read the corresponding article.

3. On your own Blog, create a post entitled, "Global Race Issues."

4. Provide a response to this map. Do you think it's accurate? What could be some problems with collecting this kind of data? What ideas or questions popped into your mind while you looked at this map or read the article?

5. Now, take a look at this article: "Even on Mute, TV Can Perpetuate Racial Bias"
 http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/17/even-on-mute-tv-can-perpetuate-racial-bias/

6. Add to your Global Race Issues blog post. Find an example from popular culture from any country (anime counts!) where the issue of race is addressed in some way and post it on your blog (could be a song, a commercial, a clip from a film or t.v. show, an interview, an excerpt from a book, etc.). Please post appropriate content.

7. Underneath your pop culture post, write what you think it says about our made-up idea about race and identity.

8. After you've posted, write your name on the board so that other people can look at your example.

9. You must leave one comment on three different people's blogs once others have posted.

Here's my example:

When I was in high school, I would go over to my best friend's house every Thursday after cross country practice. Her name was Cori Tingle. Yep, last name was Tingle. She's actually a bridesmaid in my wedding. We would make ourselves turkey sandwiches, open a bag of barbeque chips and watch the show, "Friends." It was our weekly ritual. For someone who grew up without a t.v., this was seriously awesome! I was totally wrapped up in the show, living my teenage life looking for the same friends and love stories as I saw unfold in their cute little corner of Manhattan.

It wasn't until I went to college and one of the girls who sang in my acapella group, Aisha Tyler, got a part on the show that I realized there were never any non-white people on the set. Look at the coffee shop in the above clip: all white. This is supposed to be New York City. You have got to be kidding me. The best friend group? All white. Here's another clip:



I mean, it was funny! And, Brad Pitt was on it! Then, Aisha joined the show and Ross had a new girlfriend for a couple of episodes. The presence of a black woman on the show was almost embarrassing because she was clearly a token and it only exemplified the fact that there had previously been no characters, not even extras, that were not white.

I don't know if the show, Friends, set out to be racist, but the absence of diversity on set sent a subliminal message to all of us who watched it: the hilarious and fun side of New York City is the white side. The same thing happened with the show, Sex in the City. The glamour and mischief of The Big Apple is what white people enjoy. Black people, Mexicans, and definitely Indians (the feathers kind) don't exist. Asians do exist because they're well dressed and smart, but they can't be central characters. Neither of these shows are overtly saying anything about race; it's that they subversively suggest that power and beauty and humor all have a color: white.

When I actually taught in the Bronx, this bothered me even more because my students had never been to Central Park or seen a play on Broadway. They lived in poor neighborhoods in the Bronx and they didn't feel like the rest of the city belonged to them. When I did take them to Manhattan, they all dressed up extra fancy. They wanted people to think they were important and classy. They were terrified of being judged for their clothing, their color or for the way they talked. And people did judge them everywhere we went--they thought it was a rowdy bunch of gangsters that couldn't be trusted in their museums or shops, so they watched those kids like hawks and spoke to them as if they were stupid. Where did these ideas come from? How much of it is blasted at us everyday through the cable networks or on the internet? How much of what we think and believe is programmed into us without us even realizing it? What's interesting is that this doesn't just happen in the U.S. It happens everywhere. Check out any Bollywood film from India and you can see the same underlying concepts of race in their stories, as well, except instead of "white Americans" being the best, it's "brown Indians." There is a huge stigma in India against black people. So, again, we have to wonder, where did that come from?

I think we all have to become more aware of the world we live in, more active participants in the human story, so we can start to really change the way we know one another.




http://storycorps.org/listen/?show=featured