The Concepts of Race Relations as Reflected in the Media Research Paper

The Concepts of Race Relations as Reflected in the Media - Research Paper Example Stereotyping to the extent of creating media-fueled labels creates a danger to society in which one ethnicity can be singled out in order to create a sense of ‘safety’ for another. One example of this can be seen in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as a sign of containing the threat of the Japanese. As well, the new Arizona law that requires all non-citizens to carry identification suggests that in the fight against illegal immigration a racial profile will be used to detain anyone of appearance that might not be a legal citizen. In suggesting that ‘whiteness’ is the norm from which behaviour can be identified as typical creates a conflict with the actual behaviour that exists in the world as well as a problem for those whose ethnic appearance does not fit into what is expected. The idea of ‘whiteness’ is considered a defining standard from which the American experience is then typified. According to Cooks and Simpson (20 08, p. 273), ‘whiteness’ can be defined as â€Å"a process of universalizing, through which white identity is inaugurated as the standard for racializing matrices - all racialized locations are compared to white identity†. The word that most often is associated with this concept is that of privilege. Through the concept of privilege, the ’white’ norm is defined as a luxury of life in which racial constraints have not influenced the success of a family. The benefit of privilege in which the white body experiences freedoms from the constraints of skin color denotes a form of stereotypical point of view that is then reflected within the media.