Ethnic Inequality In The Media

The history of the United States is comprised of racial and ethnic inequality, society as a whole has only transformed it’s exterior justifying it, not vanishing it completely. Underlying, sensitive issues still continue to exist today making this a prevalent concern in our society. One can see the ethnic residential segregation of different communities, and the ethnic stratification, meaning an institutionalized ethnic inequality among different ethnic groups. Bonilla Silva’s notion of colorblind racism validates the ethnic stratification and ethnic inequality, because of how the color-blind racism supports the idea of inequality and stratification. All of the ideas and research from Bonilla-Silva and Philip Q Yang, portray a corrupt issue

From Television shows portraying mostly White actors, certain ethnicities in the music industry, such as Whites in rock music and Blacks in hip-hop, and the news on a Black or Latino man who gets incarcerated. All of what is portrayed in the media has to do with ethnic stratification, since the industry is part of an institutionalized inequality. White people mostly run the media industry, one is able to see the profound unbalanced difference between the minority group in the media with the majority group. According to PBS.org, there was a research done at the University of Southern California studying the 700 top-grossing films from 2007 to 2014. “They analyzed the race and ethnicity of more than 30,000 characters to reveal diversity in film. The findings showed that for nearly a decade, filmmakers have made virtually no progress in portraying more characters from non-white racial and ethnic identities”. In the statistical bar graph and pie chart, from 2004-2014, White people are in the film industry more than minorities, portraying a minimal change in the diverse ethnicities in the film industry (PBS.org). The White actors are the top of the group, playing many big roles in different movies, while minorities are still underrepresented. According to Philip Yang, describing the origin of ethnic stratification, he said “the existing social structures still maintain Whites at the

He explains to his son the “American Dream”. The idea of everyone being equal in society and racism not being a present issue. He claims the American Dream is blinded from reality, which is a society full of ethnic inequality and institutional inequality. “The Dream thrives on generalizations, on limiting the number of possible questions…the Dream is the enemy of all art, courageous thinking, and honest writing…be wary of every Dream and every nation…” (50-53). Writing is a form Coates can express himself, and called his writing “a confrontation with my own innocence…and I was left with the cold steel truths of life” (52). He is aware of the harsh reality of what life is for a Black man in America. For instance, In Washington D.C, his friend named Prince, was shot and killed by a policeman, for looking suspicious, but, Prince was a good citizen, he had a family and went to college. This is a current issue with inequality and racism, and Coates writes the letter to tell his son how this injustice is still persistent in modern society. Coates has been stopped by policemen and has faced discrimination for his skin color, despite living in a country with the “American Dream” of everyone being equal and having a voice. Coates is a modern example of how inequality affects his life as a