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]]>American media is one of the biggest exports of the American culture. It is one of the widely consumed and distributed forms of culture in United States. It clearly means that Americans not only consume own media in large quantities, but other countries also consume American media. However, nationals of other countries do not understand or interpret the media same way as Americans do, however, different aspect and angles of the American reality and culture are viewed in other countries through media content. Media is one of the most significant tool for discussing class, gender or race in America. It takes viewer for discriminating and understanding the accuracy of proportion found of minority and ethnic groups. As stated by (Omi, 628-629) “Film and television have been notorious in disseminating images of racial minorities which establish for audiences what these groups look like, how they behave, and , in essence, “who they are”. The power of the media lies not only in their ability to reflect the dominant racial ideology, but in their capacity to shape that ideology in the first place”. (Cook, 2017).
Even during the Presidential election of Barack Obama, who was the first nonwhite President in history of United States, has contributed in distorted perception, which decreases racial barriers in American society. White people in America have the privilege in United States and different perception related to the effects of class, gender and race on their culture and to nonwhites. White Americans are seen in lower classes and upper-middle class but nonwhites exist more below poverty line as compare to white Americans (Yanow, 2015).
According to Goldberg, (2016), Columbus sailed Ocean Blue in 1492, and everyone is aware about his story, as it is taught in primary schools or before it. When he was landing in United States, he was unaware that he is exploring or developing the biggest Melting Pot of the world. This “Melting Pot” means that a new country, which is made from the mixture of different beliefs and cultures, hence, creating the new changing-culture and new country. The complication with the “Melting Pot” is that individuals are unable to put individuals of different ethnicity and race together without the conflict. The conflict is defined as “A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash.” (Murji, and Solomos, 2015)
It all started from the columnist, who work and farm by themselves on the land, which mostly were stolen. Gradually with the passing years, they started to realize that they should not work on their own, if they have other people for doing this for them. And then shipping of the slaves from Africa started. Thousands of slaves were gathered and brought in this foreign lands as slaves by the white people on the basis of race. And then these racial differences formed America. The foundation of United States was on conflict and tension. And so this strained was obvious and continued after the abolishment of the slavery. People lash out on other races for making themselves better. The use of phrases like “hating crimes” were also popping up. In the last century, American Africans were considered as the inferior groups because of their race. Areas were designated for the colored and white people. Colored nationals were forbidden to eat at certain places, and not even permitted to drink water from same fountain white drank. The discrimination was also done on the basis of ethnicity groups. They degrade minorities and do not protect their rights. Minorities were humiliated at many times (Yanow, 2015).
Cook, B., 2017. What impact has Ethnic Studies had on Black men (Doctoral dissertation, San Francisco State University).
Goldberg, D.T., 2016. Racial subjects: Writing on race in America. Routledge.
Murji, K. and Solomos, J. eds., 2015. Theories of Race and Ethnicity. Cambridge University Press.
Wade, P., 2017. Race and ethnicity in Latin America. Pluto press.
Yanow, D., 2015. Constructing” race” and” ethnicity” in America: Category-making in Public Policy and Administration. Routledge.
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]]>In the world, where societies are usually driven by individual’s faults, families could be a relative term, which bring all of it back on earth. As societies are extremely divided among sub-categories, it is necessary to have strong backbone and community, which understand the values, practices and customs of individuals. It has been believed that minority groups, are considered anyone who do not belong to any famous culture, less stable in terms of function and form as compare to families who are belong to majority of the societal group. From the racial, ethnical and cultural differences, people are relying on each other and expanding as one unit, and is quite evident that minorities have stronger relationship as compare to majorities.
First of all, individuals need to decide what exactly minority group is. In Arabs or the Muslims, African Americans, Sikhs, Hindus and Indians, even Asians too are few of the minority groups. On the basis of ethnic minorities, it has been found that the study examined the effects and influence of the income status (non-low income vs low income), on functioning of family, quality of the life, and social support in the community. The researches has shown that there are around 17% of African or Black Americans, 4% Asian, 66% white and 7% Latino (Song, 2004).
It seems like such minorities groups are very uncommon, and become the norms due to the fact of migration, repopulation or immigrants in other countries rather than their own country. Such minority groups are misunderstood and usually uncommon, which require from them to be open and must understand cultural and racial differences of each other. When minorities are very small, it is necessary to work altogether and be a stable unit, which makes them stronger and powerful and give the view of not considering them less stable (Ponterotto, and Casas, 1991).
As the characteristics of school are relatable with the acceptance of the ethnic minority neighborhood and class-mates characteristics, are often linked with acceptance of the minority neighbors. It is more likely that in the context of family, acceptance of the minority neighbors irrespective of their ethnicity and race is necessary. This reflects on the difficulty for ethnic minorities for being acceptable in society. Different practices and cultures need acceptance from every single dominating ethnic or majority groups and this goal is very difficult to accomplish. Growing in 90s or little earlier, it was really difficult in finding classmates, or friends or fellows who share same customs and values as one do. But with the passage of time, society started to practice different activities and accept other cultures and the major fact that “everyone is not same”. This has led to confiding and relying on those who are part of minorities. However, it is difficult to find people of the same ethnic minority, but still it forms the sense and bond of reliance upon one another. These families believe that they have no one, except each other (Healey, Stepnick, and O’Brien, 2018).
Healey, J.F., Stepnick, A. and O’Brien, E., 2018. Race, ethnicity, gender, and class: The sociology of group conflict and change. Sage Publications.
Karlsen, S. and Nazroo, J.Y., 2002. Relation between racial discrimination, social class, and health among ethnic minority groups. American journal of public health, 92(4), pp.624-631.
Ponterotto, J.G. and Casas, J.M., 1991. Handbook of racial/ethnic minority counseling research. Charles C Thomas, Publisher.
Song, M., 2004. Choosing ethnic identity. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 39(4), p.478.
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