Overview
The media, which is a related system to the criminal justice system, has large effects on implicit bias and how society views African Americans. While media is a broad topic, this paper will focus primarily on news organizations, but television shows, movies and other forms of popular culture will be included under this umbrella as well. The media is important as their heavy focus on crime stories leads to the news media influencing how people view crime, as when surveyed, two-thirds of people said they get their viewpoint on crime from television, twenty percent said it came from newspaper, and seven percent said it came from radio (Jerin & Fields, 2009, p. 2018).
Some of the negative impacts the media has on African American’s include:
- Focusing heavily on crime, with one Los Angeles based local news broadcast spending 25% of their airtime on crime stories (Kang, 2013, p. 219).
- The media often portrays African Americans as the criminal, with the repetition of these “overpowering images of Black deviance—its regularity and frequency—as impossible to ignore” as “these negative images have been seared into our collective consciousness” leading many to “incorrectly conclude that most Black men are criminals” (Russell-Brown, 2009, p. 14).
- In many television shows and movies, successful African Americans are viewed as having “overcome” or risen above as opposed to success as the norm (Russell-Brown, 2009, p. 15).
The problem is that repeated exposure to the images listed above only works to increase people’s implicit biases. Still, some people, will argue that the portrayal of the black man as a criminal is accurate by claiming that most black men are criminals. This misconception is easily debunked by examining FBI crime statistics. In 2016, of all offenses charged, white Americans made up 69.6% of those charged, while African Americans made up 26.9% (“Arrests by Race and Ethnicity”, 2016). The problem is, however, that for murder and manslaughter, African Americans were 52.6% of those charged, while whites were 44.7% (“Arrests by Race and Ethnicity”, 2016). Therefore, if only looking at murder and manslaughter, it appears that African Americans commit more crimes than white Americans, even though the percentages are relatively close.
Based on the data above, murder stories receive a great deal of the media’ attention, thus distorting American’s perceptions of who actually commits crime. As in Los Angeles, only two percent of all arrests are murder related charges, yet they make up twenty-seven percent of crime stories (Kang, 2013, p. 219). Therefore, by watching the news, it appears that African Americans are more likely to commit crime, due not to the statistics but the ways in which they are presented.
Recommendations
There are several proposed solutions that would word to deal with the issue of how African Americans are portrayed in the media.
- Some, such as UCLA Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Jerry Kang, have advocated for government regulation of crime stories to ensure a more fair and accurate representation (Mac Donald, 2017). Unfortunately, this could lead to people protesting over free speech, and thus is unlikely to work.
- The media could do a better job at promoting positive images of African Americans instead of stereotypes. This, of course, will be difficult, given that news corporations compete for ratings and would not want to make any changes that could harm their business model. Still, it is feasible with enough coordination and proper leadership.
- Other forms of media, including television and movies, need to make an effort to challenge stereotypes as well.
Given the current trend in the media, it is likely that television and moves are headed towards a more accurate and fair representation of race, as this has improved over the last several decades (Russell-Brown, 2009, p. 12). Still, given the negative effects the “black = weapon” association has on African Americans, such as African Americans being more likely to be the victims of police mistakes, speeding up this process will be beneficial (Banaji & Greenwald, 2013, p. 106). While many of these biases are unlikely to change quickly, deliberate actions on the part of the media would make meaningful change in how African Americans are treated within both the criminal justice system but larger institutions in society as well.