Re: The Portrayal of Blacks in Popular Media

It has been a constant source of ire for me - the way blacks (and other people of color) have been portrayed on TV and in movies - historically, and even now. Growing up, I don't remember being conscious of it until about age 11 or 12(at least a hint of it). There was a popular black singing group on TV, and I ran to get everyone to tell them to come and see. I remember for the first time being aware that 'we' were hardly ever on TV at all, and that's what made it so special to see 'us' there, doing something other than making trouble for those upstanding police forces.
Later, when I came into a much more vivid awareness of the 'whiting' of TV media, it started to come clear to me that this was not some accidental by-product of the free market. I looked at the eurocentrism of public school-taught history, and I began to see that there had been systematic exclusion of the positive contributions of blacks, Mexicans, Asians, etc. from the textbooks, from the filmstrips, from the libraries.
When I began to look into it, the spectre of structural racism in media got larger and larger. I found that fully 30% of the cowboys and pioneers who first pushed westward were of color. Why, then were all the cowboys white on TV? I found that There were courageous all-black units that fought in many of our major Wars. Why, then can I only name "Glory", "Tuskeegee Airmen" and a documentary about the Buffalo Soldiers in all my life as the positive examples 'allowed' to be seen by the masses?
Then I confronted the argument (also seen here in A2K on another thread about rappers and rap) that "green is the only important color to the free market". Bullshit. If stories about blacks and people of color as they have existed and continue to exist, in at least as much variety and depth as any other (white) people were of no commercial interest, then why are those stories co-opted so much? In "Dances With Wolves", the driving theme of the story is the laying waste of the Lakota Sioux in particular, and the American Indian in general. But we are not told this story from the perspective of a Sioux, but from that of a compassionate white soldier. In "Glory", the all-black Massachusetts 54th Regiment was the center of the action, but the central protagonist was the white colonel who bravely led them. in "The Last of the Mohicans" (1992 version -an admittedly very fictional fiction), the real last of the Mohicans takes second or third or fourth billing to the Mohican-raised white man who saves the day. In "Men of Honor", the story is about Carl Brashear - a black man who took on the bureacracy of the US Navy in real life, and won. The movie seems to split its attention equally though, between Brashear and a made-up white man who helps him, played by Robert DeNiro. I could go on, but the point is that even with their best efforts, Hollywood can only seem to be able to tolerate a person of color as the central figure in very limited circumstances. The person or people of color must be accompanied in the central aspect of the story with a white figure. Or, the character or characters (witness Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide) must be involved in a story that has little to do with race- the only thing 'black' about them must be their skin color - no reference or acknowledgement of their "otherness'. Or (again Denzel Washington in Training Day), the story must focus on the underside of human character - the pimping, hustling, criminality of the characters must play a large part in the storyline. Over and over, what one sees if one cares to scratch past the surface is a society - mirrored by its popular media - that has never come to terms with the reality of race.
I feel for those struggling black writers and producers and playwrights and authors who have to face this infuriating aspect of American society regularly. I feel for the black children who are exposed to a media that plays the news stories of the lost blond college students ad infinitum, but barely whispers once or twice about the Chicano teenager who has been lost from down the street - what messages do they internalize about their intrinsic worth to society?
I am fully aware that some who read this will frantically search their memories for exceptions to what I have presented here - much like the republicans like to answer the statistics about 2% Black support of their president with yet another reference to Condie and Colin. But I stand by my assertion - White America has a huge problem with portraying blacks and people of color in their media.