Ethnic Notions asserts that African Americans were presented on television and stage in the most flattering way possible to those at power. This is because this was when slavery was at its peak. She was very kind to her family and was content with her life. Slavery became a serious issue when slaves were treated in a completely different way.
People began to see slavery as something they didn’t like. Slavery was then portrayed in a way that showed them as people who reverted back to their primitive ways and that needed help from the white man. The slaves of African Americans were shown in a way to maintain their social status. They were shown in such a way that the American public, or the American population, could see them as slaves and believe them to behave in the same manner. These ideas are explored in Race:The Power of an Illusion, which is a very different approach. Race: The Power of an Illusion starts the documentary asking what race is and how to separate them. Although we may be tempted to think that race is biologically defined, it could be far more false. Since slavery, race has been a social construct. It is a lie, which in turn is a social construct. It’s all a tale, a fugazi for society. The documentary shows that black athletes have an advantage in sports over whites. The belief that black athletes had a different body to be more athletic was prevalent at the time. While these claims are bogus and based on fictional science, they were used as an explanation for why black athletes beat whites in the eugenics era. Although there may be small biological differences among people of different skin colours, the reality of race is in our view of one another.
How we see a person’s race is very real. This is even more evident back in slavery when Thomas Jefferson described black people as savages and Indian people as brave warriors. This notion of “race” as a way to categorize someone continues to be prevalent and can still be found in modern stereotypes.
When I was asked to pick a TV program, my first thought was South Park and the World War Zimmerman episodes. The episode features Eric Cartman trying to make friends with Token, the black token character, in order to get him out of his George Zimmerman trial. Cartman believed black riots were going to destroy the world. Token was Cartman’s attempt to stop them. While this is social commentary, it is not satire. But the basic idea that blacks are savages resonates in Ethnic Notions and Race. People still believe that white people should fear black people even after all these years.
South Park is a great show because Token, the black character in South Park, is wealthy. Kenny plays the role of the white trash. All three main characters, Cartman and Stan, are white men of the same social status. It’s similarly balanced in terms of gender. The strong female character Wendy often opposes Cartman. She even beats him. It only explores social issues to sometimes satire our country’s feelings, but it does so in a general way. This could be the infamous black riots, or the joke about transgender people being afraid. Ethnic Notions and Race. South Park combines race, gender, class, and sexuality when necessary to bring attention to an issue in the country or abroad.
