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.