Media Studies SIS

1. I am an invisible man... I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

4. Tyson is a violent and emotionally unstable man, but he is more than a one-dimensional brute. He has donated thousands of dollars to civic, educational, and humanitarian organizations. Without media fanfare, he has visited hundreds of hospitalized patients, especially seriously ill and injured children. He is smarter than his public image, and has worked diligently to "deepen" his intellect. Yet, he was marketed, with his permission, as a crude savage. Americans see him as an affirmation of the Black brute caricature, and he has, especially in recent years, embraced the stereotype outside the boxing ring. Tyson can no longer distinguish the (Iron Mike) myth from the (vicious criminal) madness, and many White Americans cannot separate Tyson's criminal behavior from his blackness.

9. The standard for mammy depictions was offered by Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 book, Uncle Tom's Cabin . The book's mammy, Aunt Chloe, is described in this way: A round, black, shiny face is hers, so glossy as to suggest the idea that she might have been washed over with the whites of eggs, like one of her own tea rusks. Her whole plump countenance beams with satisfaction and contentment from under a well-starched checkered turban, bearing on it; however, if we must confess it, a little of that tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the first cook of the neighborhood, as Aunt Chloe was universally held and acknowledged to be.

13. Tee-shirts with the words, "Ain't RACIST Just Never Met a NIGGER I liked," or "Martin Luther Coon" are found at many White power sites. Many of these sites also include "nigger jokes" and anti-Black cartoons. These cartoons are vulgar and portray traditional anti-Black stereotypes. Odinslounge , a self-described "White Racialist Page," has many racist and anti-Semitic cartoons. There is also a skinhead website which has anti-Black and anti-Jewish cartoons. The cartoons on these websites are often reproduced on posters.

14. Asian racial features, names, accents, or mannerisms as inherently comic or sinister. Because distinctive Asian characteristics are less common in the United States, movies and TV shows often fall back on them for quick and easy gags or gasps. For example, the thick accent of the goofy Chinese exchange student in "Sixteen Candles"--who is given the sophomoric name "Long Duk Dong"--is used for cheap laughs, while the numerous Fu Manchu movies have presented the Asian character's culturally distinctive speech and appearance as emblems of unfathomable evil.