The Jerk

"I was born... a poor black child....."     (from Steve Martin's, 'The Jerk')
Sometimes I hate being white.... Not because I hate my skin color or anything dramatic, I just feel in so being white, my opinions are less valid.  At least to other races.  I never thought much about color growing up; the first boy I crushed on was Hispanic, my best friend was a black girl named Tiffany. I remember once asking my mom if I could have lots of small braids in my hair like some of the girls at school.... but white girls don't have hair fit for stuff like that.  Then just before middle-school I moved to a small Texas town that really is the epitome of the Texas stereotype, and I did not fit in.  It wasn't until college I had more than one black person in my class.  I'm embarrassed to say, I felt like I forgot how to be around 'them.'  I made friends with this one girl, she was great but I could not figure out why every time we talked I felt the need to mention Usher, or Beyonce or anything 'black' I could think of...I'm so embarrassed of myself for that.  It's so silly now when I think about it; but when one isn't submerged in diversity then the only avenue of receiving it is through media.  And media is  fractured, because it's run by people and a lot of times, ignorance.

It’s easy to be quick to disapprove of the media’s images of race in both today and times past, and rightfully so.  However I don’t think the images we have grown to know as stereotypes or offensive displays of peoples were meant to be malicious. At least not always.  Again, I blame ignorance; the stereotypes we're fed we continue to feed unless we become cognizant of it and change our minds of it.

In many cases, absolutely there is some maliciousness; it’s in human nature to categorize and hierarchy ourselves amongst others.  We would do this even without media assistance. We would always find something to separate us from the others; as Dr. Seuss so poignantly showed us with his Star-Bellied Sneetches. We already divide ourselves by hair color alone; blond hair versus brunettes, or red heads—and the characteristics as to why each sub-division believes themselves superior.  So it’s no surprise when we naturally see this happening in our media.

I do think in most recent decades there have been great attempts to level the playing field and simply reflect a culture with honest intentions rather than demean it.  But in so doing we don’t just reflect but create still and absolute.  We get a small window of another culture and create in our minds the whole picture, which in turn may be false.  But how do you battle this?  Again it's human to associate and categorize everything in our minds.  People think Texas and they think cowboy hats and over-sized egos, hair and everything else. This is just the personality of the state, deserved or otherwise.  Personally I don't fit in this stereotype, and I know many others who don't as well...but I know too many more that do.  I hate to say it, because I believe we should always be righting wrongs against each other. I think every voice does deserve to be heard, but this is a battle I don't think will ever be won.  Even in the most sincerest attempts of simply reflecting a culture runs the risk of developing a new schema for ourselves. 

Truthfully, I think the ones in media who have it best at just reflecting a culture are the people on food travel shows, like Anthony Bourdain. Where their goal is to show things as they are, with an emphasis on food of course.. But I can't honestly say they have it right either because I haven't been to any of those countries!  And from our end it looks honest but someone in Vietnam may watch and think, 'that's not right at all!' Because that which we don't know to be false doesn't offend us like that which we do.

The sad truth is we can only make ourselves aware of our ignorance and do our best to see through the facades laid before us.

Pilot Episode: An Introduction

For this first blog I think I'll start by introducing a bit about myself...
I'm Katherine Couch and this blog was created for the sake, and purely the sake of a journalism class... I'm not really one to divulge so much about my own opinions into the cyber world, I don't think it would be polite of me to do so. But since I must, I will try to at least share thoughts of merit and value.

I'll start by saying a I'm a white, "middle-class" girl from the blanketed Republican of Texas.  I have no qualms about that per se, but I have spent my entire life scratching at the walls to find what is behind them.  It's not that I am not proud to be Texan, or white, or even middle-class, but where I come from, pride is all anyone has to show for that. And even then its a fragile thing.  I remember during the Bush/Kerry election I was a senior in High School and EVERYBODY was pro Bush and believed Kerry was a Nazi. ..... I didn't know where I stood. I asked everyone, why George?? The answers were always lacking. Basically their parents told them so and in turn they believed so. I just wanted to understand. Since then my efforts to understand any politics has hardly progressed. Not for lack of trying either, it's just nobody seems to know what the hell's going on,or at least how to explain it simply. Just yesterday I got in a debate with my husband about Obama's gun laws... and again, I just seek enlightenment...I don't know enough yet to have forthright opinion on government, I have notions, some understands and things that make sense to me, but government, for all the ages, has been stronger in theory than actuality.

Nevertheless, culture is my real point here. I starve for culture. "Well why not just move out of the country or something?"-- Because I'm neither rich nor homeless, which I find is favorable for such spontaneity. I do have plans to move one day but that includes a whole domino list of "to-do's" first to get me there (i.e. this journalism class). And what's the rush in moving, I'm an adult, I live in the metroplex of Texas that is writhing with culture, right??  And with such luxuries as Internet and TV the world comes to me! Just the other day I visited such places as Scotland, Paris and ventured the western coast all from my comfy computer chair as Google Earth whisked me away across the globe in a fashion only Calgon could admire. 

So then why are all my closest friends, white, middle-class people?

After this class I noticed something, all my favorite shows are filled with mostly white, middle-class(ish) people. I notice when they change it up with the token minority. I'm disheartened that the media feeds to the masses exactly what they already are. I understand it, but I don't like it.  I have no known hatred or prejudice against other races or social classes, I interact with a diverse group of people everyday, and adore it, but in my inner-circle of life and friends, I'm exactly what they wanted me to be, and with who they want me to be with.  I don't mean that to say there's some huge conspiracy going on in mass media, there may be but I'm not here to say it. I just mean, I am a part of the largest demographic, and find through such things as TV and Internet, I'm only encouraged to stay in that demographic and with others that share it with me.  Aldous Huxley is pointing a big 'I told you so' finger in our faces right now.

However in spite of this realization, I think the world is changing. I think there are more inter-racial relationships than ever before. Honestly it won't surprise me if in a hundred years we've all melded and bred ourselves into one coffee-colored race. But culture will still exists.  And that's what we really get misfed here.  We learn stereotypes, and how to feel about those stereotypes, even if it's not how we feel at all. I don't know why I would ever make a joke to my Asian friends about knowing Kung-Fu...cause if they do I certainly don't want to be the one pissing them off. Those are probably the people you want on your side. But I digress.... culture is really the thing I really lament here.  Having roots.  America is so wonderfully diverse, but when we really look at the media and how they are delivering messages to us, so many things are getting lost in the translation.