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Breaking News! A stress outbreak has  been reported in the City of Berkeley, CA. A high concentration of this epidemic is located within the SMASH community. Experts believe this to be caused by overloads of homework, lack of sleep and poor meal quality. However if this condition isn’t treated immediately, it evolves to stage 2, the lash-out/reaction phase. All cases of scholars who have graduated to phase 2  must be reported to the nearest hospital. One scholar, Kelechi Okereke, has decided to get a professional opinion.

Patient:Um Dr. Phelps, I’m really scared, I I I think I have the stress syndrome, what are the symptoms?

Doctor: Okay, I’ll ask you a few questions and if they apply to you answer with a brief explanation

Do you have an increased inability to concentrate

Patient: Yes! I never can pay attention in class!

Dr: Do you often have sudden mood swings or any rapid changes in emotions without trigger.

Patient: What are you accusing me of, No! why would you think that!? Do you think I’m mean. *sob sob*

Dr: Okay… next question. Any aches and pains?

Patient: Well, yea actually my neck and back hurts all the time especially after walking up and down the endless steep UC Berkeley hills.

Dr: Final question. Have your eating or sleeping patterns changed?

Patient: Definitely. The food at the Foothill dorms is horrible. As a result, I skip meals and all the homework piles up so I never can get enough sleep staying up to complete it.

Dr: I’m going to run a few test… Judging from your replies, you definitely are over stressed. You meet all the criteria we see in patients. There is no cure for the stress syndrome, however, there are different types of treatment to reduce stress. Also, not all stress is bad for you, in fact, a little stress helps you perform better. Luckily we caught this early before phase 2 because we took in a lot of patients whose cases of phase 2 stress were irreversible. I’ll be back with your prescription

For my PSA poster, I’m considering an ad campaign on LRA groups, pollution, or

One PSA poster idea would be the LRA groups focused in Uganda. I think this issue is important because young children shouldn’t be recruited or manipulated into joining mass killing squads. I think that this topic is interesting and relevant to people because certain countries like Uganda. My target audience is Americans who can make a difference by donating money or sending in aid to Uganda to  help organizations like the LSP.

Pollution affects me because there can be serious environmental issues in the future if it does not stop. This topic should interest others because the long term affects of pollution will contribute to global warming and pollution also contaminates clean usable water which is a very scarce resource. My audience would be everyone because everyone can help reduce pollution. The imagery I would choose would be be a duck that feels the affects of pollution to such high extremes that the duck has mutated and almost genetically connected with trash.

Driving Under the Influence is a very important issue. People should be interested by it because so many die each year from drunk driving accidents. I thought I should bring attention to this issue because the rates of deaths each year continue to increase. I want to speak to all the drivers that go out to drink to designate a driver to get them home to protect their lives as well as others. The imagery I would choose would be a before and after picture of a car that gets wrecked by a drunk driver and the wrecked car side would be blurred. At the top of the page would be a powerful statistic about DUI deaths per year.

Select a media sample that you feel has imposed a stereotype that is untrue in relation to you.

The Role of Media on Stereotyping

Since the beginning of mass media, our society has trusted the media to be honest when displaying information to us. However, often times the information relayed is erroneous. The media continues to stereotype minority groups forcing viewers to become influenced by prejudice. Media stereotyping is typically when any form of media shows only one-sided perspectives of a certain group specifically under-represented individuals like myself. Although some stereotypes may have some truth to them, there is error in assuming that every stereotype is always true. I chose a specific case study on how certain offensive cartoons convey stereotypical prejudices against minorities.

The Impact of Disney

Consider the huge influence Walt Disney Productions have on young children. Not only do the images catch their attention but they are also manipulative. Some of the images include racist, insulting characters that capitalize on the flaws or misconceptions of minority communities. Many examples include how the main character in Disney’s movies always seem to be “darker” than the others and take on the physical characteristics of the african-american image. In the movie “The Lion King,” the main perpetrator was scar, a brown-skinned lion with dark black hair who killed his own brother and he resembled a black male. The following video clip is from the “The Lion King.”

Another example is in the movie “Oliver and Company,” where a mexican Chihuahua in a gang of dogs was getting drunk, lusting over a pretty poodle, hot wiring a stolen car and was named Ignacio Alonzo Julio Federico de Tito, a common stereotype that all mexicans have long names. The video clip below is from the Disney movie “Oliver and Company.”

These types of cartoons can manipulate a young mind to perceive such characters in real life in a biased and negative way. I was raised on Disney and didn’t even notice the racism in its movies probably due to my young age. When children grow up being constantly affected by certain media stereotypes like this, they subconsciously form prejudices in their mind before exploring the reality of things. A particular case was the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, CA by a white police officer which sparked much controversy. The main idea was that all they mentioned on the news before the actual shooting video came out was his criminal record which was completely unrelated to the shooting. I think this was an attempt to soothe the horrible situation and to take away light on the fact that a white police officer killed an unresisting black man.

Common Stereotypes (for African-Americans specifically): We cannot perform in school, we have a lot of kids and leave our families, we are in gangs, we love eating fried chicken and watermelon, killers, we wear grills and fancy “blingy jewelry”

The “Real” Facts

However, many of these stereotypes are incorrect. Many studies tell how the media often shows a lot of negative images of african-americans. According to the Entman-Rojecki Index of Race and Media, 89% of Black female movie characters are shown using vulgar language, while only 17% of White woman are. Black women are shown as being violent in movies 56% of the time compared to the 11% of white women. These types of proportions are consistent throughout this and other studies. Where do they get them? Are blacks really a more violent race? The statistics say no, they are not. Other statistics prove otherwise.

Personal Reflection

As a young African-American male, I have witnessed stereotypical prejudices against me first-hand. One instance was when I was on the UC Berkeley campus and I walked on the side walk past an Asian women on the same sidewalk as me and she clenched her purse as if I wanted to still it. Another instance is at my school. I’m the only African-American male in my AP Chemistry class and the first day I walk into the class one of the white staff members asked if I needed help in getting to the “right” class.

The left  image is a distorted picture of a black male from a 1950s minstrel show cartoon were blacks dressed up like clowns and embarrassed themselves to “entertain” a white crowd. I find this image particularly offensive because I am a black male and we don’t look like that. This picture exaggerates the facial features like the big red lips, the very dark skin color and of course the stereotypical gold teeth/grills.

All in all, I’ve found out that the media has such a great impact on the world around us. There seems to be no hope for a stop to stereotyping because people will always feel they are better than others and build up prejudices against them. Especially because of companies like Disney that get a majority of people at a young age, leading to a world of ignorant adults.