6.9.09

To start out, I'd recognize race as a form of self-identity; it's a part of us we choose to identify with the most. It's a concrete enough of an idea that is easily identifiable and universally accessible, but also encompassing many elements from other forms of self-identification to the point of abstractness. It's a type of classification of the human population that includes hereditary traits, like skin color, and environmental things, like nationality. Some people say race is an idea societies or governments create to generically identify humans, while others say it's got a justifiable root in biology. I'm fine with the latter viewpoint as long as race identities are flexible enough to include everyone who wants to identify themselves with a group - that's harder than it sounds, I know. I was born in Vietnam but am an American citizen. Am I "Asian," "Southeast Asian," "East Asian," "Asian/Pacific Islander" or "Asian-American"? My cousin has a white dad and a Vietnamese mother - is he Asian-American or Caucasian, and can he choose (and where is the option for both)? Which race does Tiger Woods identify with more, his Thai mother or his African-American father?

Although this isn't an anthropology course, I hope to come closer to finding the answers.

With regards to the relationship between race and the media, I feel this is complicated. Not complicated as in "some type of difficult problem to solve," although that's certainly true; but complicated because I feel there are two ways the two concepts relate with each other and both ways involve layers of discussion.

The first issue is how racial identities are portrayed in Western media. Some people argue that the media perpetuates stereotypes by assigning more coverage and prominence to stories that reflect the racial tension and division that exists in society. A white N.Y. policeman shooting an off-duty black officer. A Latino gang declaring genocidal war on a black neighborhood in California. A racially insensitive and sexist billion-dollar owner of a professional basketball team on the brink of federal investigation. Is race relevant to any of these stories? Are not the meat of each story a police officer overstepping his boundaries of "to serve and protect," gang violence and a high-profile business owner being investigated? It's hard to say how the media should treat such types of news coverage, and a discussion involving journalistic impartiality may become relevant about whether or not the media even needs to promote diversity or racial tolerance - if the media's job is report what happens, and what happens are events involving race as a central theme, then how could people advocate that the media should frame stories one way or the other without violating journalistic principles?

If a white cop attacks a black civilian, should the media A) ignore the issue of race and focus on the story on police brutality, B) involve the issue of race, but avoid editorializing, C) fully frame the story around race by purposefully asking witnesses and getting quotes about the black/white topic, or D) treat the event like if it was any other story on a typical news day. My point is that it's easy to say we don't like how the media portrays race without providing a superior gameplan.

The second issue of the relationship between race and the media is diversity represented in the news room. Regardless of whether one feels the media has some type of role or responsibility to help society progress by doing more than plain reporting the facts, there can be no argument that the best news rooms and the most effective communicators reflect and empathize with the consumers of news. The first thing that popped into my mind when Joe Hights presented the hypothetical of a news station represented by only a 9 percent rate of minorities to non-minorities is whether or not this lack of diversity purposefully reflects the consumers and citizens to which that news station is targeting. If the newspapers are selling to a market made up of 90 percent non-minorities, then why should the ratio of minorities to non-minorities in the news room change? Why isn't it fine the way it is? The reality is that this is rarely the case, and most media outlets reach a wider range of audience that simply requires the employees of the respective media platforms to understand the consumers of news, and in most cases, the consumers are going to be diverse more often than they are not and so the news room needs to reflect this. Race is just one part of diversity, but it's a big part.

For what it's worth, Tiger Woods has made few public statements about his race besides mentioning how proud he is of both his ethnic backgrounds. He also thinks racial divisions will eventually disappear as the world's population integrates to the point of meaningless racial boundaries. That's debatable, but it supports how complicated and uneasy the topic of race makes people feel.