I identify myself as African-American, a young man who is strong and chasing success, while I’m attending university and work as the same time. However, being black in America has its challenges. Usually the media and other cultures view African-Americans as lazy, unworkable and thugs, the stereotypical as African-Americans are discriminated and classified, due to that they are unable to advance in white America Corporation companies or in politics. The history of African-Americans has contribute so much over decades and have overcome things like slavery, racisms, Civil Rights Movements and fighting in World War II. I am proud to be African-American. The stereotypical misrepresentations of African-American men in pop culture have prejudiced societal views in decades. The images portrayed in media and pop culture creates a negative stereotype of African-American men.
The worst thing that the media does in pop culture is that, begin a black men means that you’re good at sports, meaning that you can run fast, jump high, and lift more weights than any other person. Yes, it’s true the majority of athletes are black in mainstream sports and yes, they are good players. Some athletes get scholarships to attend university because of their sports background. Therefore, it doesn’t mean that all blacks who attend universities have sports scholarships. There are millions of black people who attend universities without scholarships or any other kind of funding’s. people view black men uncontrollable or uneducated, according to Hollywood there was movie called (Coach Carter, 2005), It’s about a Black man named Ken Carter, who comes back to his community and helps out his community by offering his assistance on helping out his neighborhood. He takes a basketball coaching job in his former high school and brings hope and change into the neighborhood, by giving speeches to young black man who gave up on hope because people stopped caring about them, since they live in a poor neighborhood. Mr. Carter’s focus was to explain to these youth black men that there is more to life than basketball, there are other opportunities than playing basketball. He taught them if they are ready to learn and get education, than they can do anything in life. The movie is based on true story, however, the story is so good that black men can be anything they chose to do. Ken Carter teaches those kids that to have goals in life, not to play basketball in college or join up in the draft to get pick up by the NBA (National Basketball Association). The point is that just because few basketball players make millions of dollars does not mean that other young black kids have to idolized those basketball players, because there should a system in place where we make an education a priority for all black males, to prove that blacks males can be CEO, Senators, Congressmen, Owners, Businessmen, Even The President, or The Vice President of the United States of America.
African-American are typically stereotyped as violent because of the music they like, which is (RAP MUSIC). Even though Hip-Hop music has violent lyrics (some of it) , it’s not true that people act upon those lyrics, therefore, the media and pop culture makes it seem that black men are violent who live to kill and steal from others due to (RAP MUSIC). In pop culture things change from bad to worse when the media influence and scares people not to engage with black men because they listen RAP MUSIC, than the media takes it further where they show videos of African-American males being violent, who will rob your cars and steal your purses, after all that they label The African-Americans that one word we all hear which is GANGSTER or THUG. Most African-Americans walk and talk and work like any other person, however, the media takes control of our television sets, post internet articles on how black men are behaving and black men are thugs, who are good for nothing. The truth about the media is that, all the information we seek, we get it from the media because we are busy in our daily lives, with work and taking care of our families, that we forgot to find the truth, so we turn to the media for information. Always the media makes the discussions to show things that scare people, they put fear into us. Any time a robbery happens or house break-in occurs, there will be advertisement for security system, where they show four or five black men breaking into a house with black masks on their face carrying guns and vandalizing the house. It’s bad to be a young black male in America, because the news media shows disturbing images of thugs pointing guns in front of the camera. The worst of it, is that the media shows dark misbehaving young black males standing in corners, People assume that all black men sale drugs in corners because, why would someone stand in corners if they weren’t selling drugs. People misjudge black males too quick, they never get a change nor do they a get a chance to explain themselves.
It’s a challenge to be an African-American, it does feel like you have to better and well behaved, even taking a walk or jogging in the streets because you may look suspicious and someone will and definitely will call the police. We judge too harshly not because of our skin color, but our background and the stereotyping. Most people say that black people are thieves who steal, because of (RAP MUSIC) they listen to and living in bad neighborhoods. In urban areas there are a lot of black people that also stereotyped other black people due to high rate of crimes, blacks betray on each other instead of building a better community and staying positive and helping each other. However, that cannot happen because black people have to first overcome the challenges they face day to day, stop the crime, talk to their youths and have community leaders and show support and love, and only than they can live in prosperity. If only that happens than white people would not fear black people as much as they do now, white people now believe that young black males are thugs who wear hoody sweaters and swag their pants low and look engage in trouble. White people believe that black parents don’t raise their children proper way of following law.
When I have free time I like to listen to music and enjoy myself, and when I am listening to music I like to turn the volume way up where it is so loud that it wakes up everyone in the neighborhood. I prefer to listen to (RAP MUSIC), I enjoy it and also relate to it. Therefore, the media calls (RAP MUSIC) Violent, horrible, and changes the minds of the youth. Many people are against RAP MUSIC because of the crimes rate, drugs and women that are involved in the music they sing about. Gangsta Rap is what the media calls it, which is popular among teens and young adults, it’s controversial and involves in bad lyrics that will make you crunch and hated it immediately, because its about conflict and struggles young black males, its way to express yourself. Rap artists tell a story about the struggles they have been in or something that happen to someone close to them. They Rap about society and how things are not fair. They talk about the police treating them bad comparing to white people. They talk about the judiciary system and how it’s not fair and putting the black men down. In rap music, it’s about expressing yourself. However, the media attacks Rap Music and just plain slamming down negatively. They media attack Rap artists like (Snoop Dogg) by talk about sex, violence, beating women, and murder. Yet corporate America doesn’t want anything to do what blacks are listening to, because of the media said so. There is also Positive Rap music that all of us listen to and encourage our youths to be a good example, but the media’s focus is only the negative side of RAP MUSIC. The media tells us who we are and what should we listen to, the media scares other cultures by telling them negative things about Rap Music and how bad it is for kids. Things could be better if the media was not attacking the culture of black people and our music.
African-Americans are not what the media seems to be or pop-culture, we’re all Americans, but stereotyping has damaged African-Americans image. Every time, someone turns on the News or any other channel, African-Americans are represented in stereotypical manner, where unreasonably are called criminals and ghetto thugs who are only good for nothing. All the negativity is hurtful and it causes long-term damage to black’ men self-esteem. However, we can fix stereotyping by education people not to judge or hurt others. We can get people to volunteer and get involved in communities, schools, colleges, churches to stop stereotyping the African-American males. The good thing is to protest the media who continues to show hurtful images of African-Americans and other races as well. If we all come together and get to know one another, we will find out that we have the same culture and background, we are as much American as White American. We are all chasing the same things, which is to continue making America a better place.
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