Tuesday, May 14

Selling Identities: Racing Against Racism (Part 2)

Part Two - The Rules


The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media – Stuart Hall

Ideology is a pertinent social force defined by three concepts. First, an ideology is the collection of different ideas into one generalized meaning. A given topic will take on different meaning depending upon the ideological stance one views it from. Second, ideology produces the social atmosphere we live in. We derive the overarching social conscious that dictates our understanding of the world from ideology. In this way, ideology takes the form of common sense in our minds and becomes a part of our unconscious thought. As a result, the ideas it propagates produce a “naturalized” world in our minds. Third, ideology gives its subjects an identity in society and consequently, the ability to represent ideological truths. One of media’s most important and influential processes is the creation, modification, and circulation of these ideologies. The media produces likenesses of the world that dictate our understanding of society and how and why it works. This ideological production is responsible for the construction of race.
In its depiction of the world, media also defines race. It determines the ways in which society perceives race and the role this perception plays in inter-human relations. The media is constantly redefining and elaborating ideas about race in order to stay relevant in our ever-evolving society. It produces and advertises these revised racial statements in two ways, through overt and inferential racism. Overt racism is the open discussion and advancement of a blatantly racist argument or opinion whereas inferential racism is the supposed natural representation of situations about race based on unchallenged assumptions. The latter is dangerous for society for this racism is subtle and pervades all forms of media production, propagating an unconscious racism in all its audiences. These types of racism assume several common identities in advertising images: the slave, the native, and the clown or entertainer. Though exact replicas of these identities are not very prominent in today’s media, modern images still contain traces of them. Our apparent superior wisdom and liberalism as a modern society supposedly separate us from the blatant racism of the past, but racial stereotyping and prejudice still exist today and remain influential factors in our social relationships.
Hank Willis Thomas works to enlighten his audiences to this modern-day racism in his Branded, Unbranded, and Rebranded projects. His presentation and manipulation of advertising images reveals the generalizations made about race and cultural identity by the media. 

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