Racial Bias In America

How do you find out about the nation’s news? Whether it be by social media outlets, such as Facebook, or by the good old fashioned newspaper, or by watching the news, you might find that there is an issue, concerning race, throughout our country. Although, the United States of America might seem as if it has overcome its racial problem, involving caucasians and people of color, it hasn’t. The touchy “race” problem can currently be found in news media. Racial bias in news media is proving to be a problem in the United States of America because it is changing the minds of people in a derogative way, it promotes racial profiling and stereotypes negatively, and it is dangerous to both the people in close connection to the situation and everyone

Racial bias in media affects everyone, whether it be directly or indirectly. Getting your information biased can bias your opinion, too. Even The Society Pages, who did a study on this, found that,”Biased reporting, in other words, changes the minds of viewers, literally” (Wade). If an average white person, who has little opinion about the colored race, sees a news report saying that four black men were arrested in a burglary investigation he probably would think much of it. If the pictures of those men were their mugshots after they had been dragged out of their homes, maybe even in the middle of the night, making them look menacing the white man might’ve thought that they were awful men. On that very same day, a group of three college wrestlers, who were white, committed the same crime, yet they the pictures that the same news station used for them was their wrestling team photos, which pictured the in a suit and tie. If the man saw the picture of these students he might’ve thought that it was probably a mistake, that maybe they were just playing a scavenger hunt game at the college and went a little overboard. This also can affect the way they get punished, because it changes your opinion on the case at hand. Not enough people see these biases in media and that can actually make it worse as well. If only a small percentage of the nation sees the problem, then it will take longer to convince a substantial amount of people to

Having colored people wrongfully accused of a crime just because of the color of their skin can be dangerous to the preservation and promotion of our country. People may get jumpy and shoot a civilian, because racial bias in media has changed their attitude towards a specific race as said hear by Lisa Wade, “Studies of Americans’ unconscious beliefs shows that most people — white and black — think black people are dangerous and both average folks and police are quicker to shoot black than white people” (Wade). Who can we trusted to uphold the law if our law-enforcers kill people unlawfully, because of the color of their skin? How can we fight united against terrorism, global warming, new diseases and viruses, and everything else if we can’t get over a problem that has been in our lives since before this country even became a nation? We can’t stand unified if we can’t even stand to be next to each other without fearing for the safety of your life. What are we supposed to teach our children about the law? Are black children expected to learn to stay in the house for the rest of their lives and to not trust the men in blue? I already grew learning not to do specific things out in public strictly because of the color of my skin. This is why we need to change racial bias in media and change how it affects us. To conclude, racial bias in media affects our nation very poorly. It changes our thoughts about each other and how to handle