The color line probably extends to health benefits and the media. In the two passages I am going to write about race discrimination is a common theme. Lesser healthcare and unfair portrayals in the media are a cause for concern for some members in society.
My least favorite passage was The Color of Health in the United States. However it was better than some of the others that I read. They gave a stat that black infants have a twice as high mortality rate than white infants. They don’t mention that incomes for black people are lower across the south and east. As shown on the government’s census site the income is less in states that have a larger portion of black people. If a baby is born into a richer white family with a lot of health benefits and the best doctor, of course that baby has a better chance of surviving than a baby born into poor black family with a single mom and no health benefits. Things have been better with more and more companies offering health benefits but that has resulted in some reduced wages and salary. On page 70 they talk about the decline of black income and they didn’t mention that there was a major recession in the early 1980’s. A lot of working families felt the pinch of a worldwide recession.
I would describe this to a 5 year old by using small words. The passage doesn’t cover very easy material but I would say that it shows the difference in money between black and whites. It also shows that not everyone gets to go to the doctor when they are sick.
My favorite passage was the Broadcast News Portrayal of Minorities. I had taken a broadcast/journalism class before and I remember there being a lot of stories about non-whites. A lot of those stories were in the first five or six minutes of a broadcast. I also took a government class that covered government news networks too. It was the same as the broadcast/journalism class. More negative stories on non-whites. On page 416 the author said that in Pittsburgh during a 3 week study of local newscasts it showed that 80% of the stories on black people were negative. I would also tell the young one that sometimes in cities with a bigger number of black people than white people the odds of there being more crime from the larger group of people.
I would describe this passage to a five year old by showing them a newscast. This has to do with Race in America because this is in the heart of America and news programs are not handling race correctly.
Both of these passages had a lot to offer. Overall I thought the last two passages I read were the best so far. They painted a grim picture of television news broadcasting but some people already knew that.
2. Gallagher, Rethinking the Color Line, page 69 and 415.