While African Americans are slowly being integrated into
American culture in modern times, the African American people were largely a
marginalized population here in the United States up until about 40 or 50 years
ago when the attempt to integrate African Americans into American culture
began. Marginalization, to be clear, is the exclusion, of a particular group,
from meaningful participation in society. This can be seen in television
sitcoms of the 1950’s, where little or no black people are seen at all, and if
they are, they are seen as criminals or servants. Why were they excluded? Well,
probably because the majority of viewers (who are white) would have felt
uncomfortable watching a black family on television and they would have had a
hard time relating with the show because the white majority does not look at
America as a black nation.
The truth
is African Americans are marginalized even to this day. The United States was
founded by white people in the interest of white people. No other race or
cultural group was added in the original constitution. In the first 200 years
of this country, African Americans were a highly marginalized community. This
can be seen in Tim Wise’s film “White Like Me” when the majority of jobs held
by “colored” people were excluded from the benefits of Job Insurance. You would
never see a black man holding the part of a lead character in a regular
television sitcom in the 1950’s. This is because the majority of viewers did
not feel African Americans were apart of America.
This
can also be seen in the news coverage up until modern times. Agenda setting is
the theory that the media tells you what to think about but not necessarily how
to think. In a study done by Franklin Gilliam and Shanto Iyengar, they found
that black people are overrepresented as the criminals and the white people are
overrepresented as the victims. Why do you think African Americans are
represented in such a way? I believe it is partly because they are still a
marginalized community, often seen as a phenomenon. If all you see on
television is black perpetrators harming white victims you are bound to
activate some schemas and stereotypes that are already in place.
This is
a problem that goes back almost 400 years. You see, this country was never made
to be integrated. This country was founded on the freedom of white people and
solely white people. The whole process and function of this country is to
benefit the white man. I agree with Malcolm X when he says that the only way
for the black man to be truly free is on his own land with complete “freedom to
take care of the needs, to take care of the wants, and the likes and the dislikes
of our people. To establish our own nation, our own society, our own heaven,
our own future.” When a society has been and is so centered on the benefits of
one type of people then it is near impossible to integrate that marginalized
community (African Americans). I would like to end this blog post with another
quote from Malcolm X:
“When
you are another man's country, in another man's land, under another man's flag
and under another man's government and under another man's court system, you
have to look to that other man for justice and you'll never get it and negros
in this country probably are authorities on that.” –Malcolm X
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