Race and the Media
A look at the truth and their truth.
by Ronald Bronson, Jr.
October/November 2001
Over the past several years, I have traveled to various parts of the United States. In my travels, I have observed a variety of things from the way people interact to the social conditions and climates of their communities and one thing remained constant middle class Americans faces a great deal of the same issues. It matters not that they live in Iowa, Minnesota, Washington or New Jersey. The same problems: unemployment, failing schools and suburban sprawl.
However, the media paints a different picture. According to media accounts, political pundits and everyone else with their own channel (or a web site) will take their fifteen minutes to tell us about how it’s someone else’s fault that their communities are being destroyed. While this formula gets many a politician elected and dupes the public, the effects are actually much worse and have a greater impact.
We have been conditioned to believe that predominately minority communities are riddled with the most crime, their children are underachievers and never amount to anything. So, we never think that there are places with few minorities that have the same problems. Yet, during the past three years I have traveled to small towns and larger cities with small or no minority populations. And the problems I see are strikingly similar. This includes high crime, substandard schools and a lack of wealth in the communities themselves.
While I recognize that there are differences in every community in America, we must understand that a lot of the issues that we often separate because of race, thinking of problems as “that’s their problem” are ones that we would be able to come together and share ideas to make progress. Why does the media play such a divisive role? There are plenty of reasons, but the most likely for this disparity is that the general consensus of society believes that there are differences between us, even if in some cases the very same people are their neighbors. But, few subjects get airplay or media attention like race and the divisions that it causes.
Race is an obvious social construct that some people feel needs to be bolstered as much as possible. Regardless of this, Americans are proving in their daily lives that we are the same. Now, if we could get the word out…
Ron Bronson, Jr., is a student originally from Central New Jersey. He has been published in a number of publications including USA Today. He is an editor of an independent student newspaper and has served in a variety of leadership roles in national student non-profit organizations over the past six years including the National Junior Political Association and The ChangeAmerica Foundation.
Also by Ronald Bronson, Jr.
Copyright © 2000 Ronald Bronson, Jr. and The Multiracial Activist. All rights reserved.