Media Portrayals of Hate Crimes Against African Americans

Introduction

The media has significant potential to be an agent of positive change in society. One area where the media could make a meaningful difference is in challenging stereotyping. Unfortunately, the same media has been implicated in the court of public opinion for actively supporting stereotypes. There are a host of factors and methods adopted by the media that help promote such stereotyping (Hoffmann, 22). A large number of images of African-Americans and similar minorities are shaped, in large part, by media coverage. This essay explores how the media has portrayed African-Americans with regard to hate crimes against this minority group in the United States. It also examines how the media interprets these scenarios and how it presents them to the public, as well as how the general public reacts to media portrayals of hate crimes against the African-American population. All major media forms have been reviewed to provide answers to these questions.

A large body of research data shows how the media has misrepresented male African-Americans across many instances. While individual research efforts tend to focus on single media forms — such as television, magazines, or video games — the comprehensive research information reveals a wide-ranging pattern that includes the following (Hoffmann, 22):

Underrepresentation in general: For example, Black men are rarely featured in television interviews as successful fathers, in product advertisements, as expert analysts, as technology professionals in commercials, or in fictional shows that portray characters in a positive light.

Negative associations blown out of proportion: These have mostly to do with poverty and unemployment. The image of the idle Black man on the streets is not the true face of poverty in the United States, yet he is consistently targeted as the default image by media outlets across the country.

Positive associations limited: Black men are most commonly represented positively in the areas of sports, music, physical achievement, and masculinity. While the American media is filled with Black male figures meant to inspire, they tend to represent a narrow range of qualities, with many other everyday virtues and roles left out.

The problem frame: Owing to prevailing distortions and one-sided narratives, Black men are excessively associated with intractable social problems.

Omitted stories: The media has largely ignored numerous dynamics that affect the lives of Black men, including the historical injustices that fuel the economic disadvantage of the minority community. Persistent bias against Black Americans continues, yet the media frequently chooses to overlook it.

How Hate Crime Is Perpetuated by the Media

The media is, in many ways, a reflection of the society it represents. Media outlets draw from a shared pool of common sense assumptions that are rooted in the broader culture. It is generally accepted that crime deserves punishment, that legal systems exist to ensure order, and that income inequality is an expected feature of a free-market society. These unwritten assumptions form a kind of cultural reservoir that everyone draws from — and they are often laced with traces of older thought systems and belief structures (Jiwani).

One naturally occurring feature of such a system is the way the media portrays those perceived to be different. Such differences span race, culture, and other characteristics. Any perceived difference from the majority norm has historically been coded as wrong or negative. Groups that diverged from the dominant majority were labeled as "others" — perceived as criminal, dirty, uncultured, and unkempt. As a result of this apparent social myopia, such groups were thought to need to be kept away from "civilized" society and were effectively confined to restricted areas. A clear distinction and antagonism between "them" and "us" was firmly established (Jiwani).

Doreen Indra, in her extensive study of racial and ethnic minorities in the Canadian Vancouver Press between 1907 and 1976, identified the presence of a "moral economy" as the underlying driving force. Colored people were consistently presented in a negative light while favored groups were portrayed positively. Similar trends have continued in the United States, even as overt discrimination nominally receded around the turn of the century. Minorities were portrayed as criminals, deviants, and dangerous invaders. Such legacies still inform media today through a reservoir of images borrowed from the past regarding the male African-American. Just as in Indra's findings, recent studies of American daily newspapers reveal that Black people continue to be associated with undesirable traits, and that such publications tend to focus disproportionately on themes that frame Black people in a negative light. It is clear, therefore, that historical legacies continue to influence how today's society views African-Americans.

Many other examples illustrate the media's negative portrayals of African-Americans, and it is evident that such views are strongly influenced by skewed, traditional, and historical perceptions. The media has made use of powerful platforms — including video games, television shows, radio, and the internet — to portray African-Americans as inferior or dangerous. Racially motivated crime is a systematic phenomenon that operates across various levels of dominant-group culture. It manifests not only in individual actions and attitudes but also in institutional structures and cultural norms throughout American society.

Mediation of Racial Crime Profiling: Commission and Omission

Mediation in racial crime works in a variety of ways. The most common mechanism is linking specific groups of people to particular behaviors. Several studies suggest that African-American males tend to be notably absent from general media coverage, while simultaneously being featured prominently in stories associated with crime or community problems. This pattern reinforces the assumption that criminal activity is exclusively associated with African-Americans — an assumption that can fuel public sentiment that such communities should be marginalized or their cultural heritage curtailed (Jiwani). The growing tendency to attribute certain behaviors to specific groups has been described by analysts as a form of cultural racism, in which the cultures of minority groups are framed as inherently problematic and the root cause of broader social ills.

Hate crime is commonly promoted through stereotyping. There is a pervasive tendency to represent minority groups within clearly marked categories — crime, poverty, and similar negative frames. Stereotypes function by highlighting selected characteristics and using them to label entire groups, while all other characteristics are excluded from coverage. Consequently, public assumptions about people are built on these stereotypes (Dijk, 26). These are dangerous assumptions that can, in extreme cases, lead to mass persecution or genocide. The profiling of groups on the basis of race spans both electronic and print media. One of the most common manifestations is identifying suspects by race when it is unnecessary — for example, statements such as "our suspect is a Black man." Where an explicit racial reference is absent, cultural background is often substituted instead, as in: "The body recovered from the run-down suburbs showed that she is an African-American" (Jiwani). Such language implies that cultural identity itself led the individual to their described predicament.

On occasion, the media uses individual community members as representatives of an entire group — an approach that treats the community as monolithic and assumes that the characteristics of a single individual can be used to judge the whole. The media frequently overlooks the unique aspects of each individual in pursuit of a fast-turnaround story (Jiwani; Dijk, 41).

Conclusion and Possible Solutions

Advocates and communicators in the media must seek to present accurate portrayals of the African-American male in media forums. This can be achieved through awareness, external pressure on media houses to remain objective, the production of fresh images that express a balanced view, and general public education initiatives. They should also work to include more African-Americans across media production networks and decision-making chains. New ways of discussing these issues more effectively must be developed — for example, by providing a framework for communicating the invisible and systematic forces that marshal biases against Black men (Stewart & Payne, 1337–8).

Researchers have noted that the latter is a particularly challenging task for communicators. Unless audiences are led to appreciate the role of systemic forces, even sympathetic viewers may still draw incorrect conclusions about the root causes of problems and how best to address them. Although it is difficult to offer clear and compelling images of large-scale causality, doing so is critical. It may help communicators overcome persistent dilemmas and inspire them to address traditionally difficult topics in a constructive manner. One such example is discussing gangs — a subject that carries inherent fear triggers. However, a well-framed story with a broader perspective can help audiences focus on the lack of social and economic advancement options available to people in certain communities, rather than defaulting to stigmatization (The Opportunity Agenda, 18).

Works Cited

Dijk, Teun A. Racism and the Press. Routledge, 1991.

Hoffmann, Gregg. "Racial Stereotyping in the News: Some General Semantics Alternatives." ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 1991, pp. 22–30.

Indra, Doreen M. "The Invisible Mosaic: Women, Ethnicity and the Vancouver Press, 1905–1976." Canadian Ethnic Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, 1981, pp. 63–74.

Jiwani, Yasmin. Racism and the Media. Canadian Anti-Racism Education and Research Society, n.d.

Stewart, B. D., and B. K. Payne. "Bringing Automatic Stereotyping Under Control: Implementation Intentions as Efficient Means of Thought Control." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 34, 2008, pp. 1332–1345.

The Opportunity Agenda. Social Science Literature Review: Media Representations and Impact on the Lives of Black Men and Boys. Tides Center, 2011, pp. 13–55.