Holloway: Jay Holloway, Host
Amana: Harry Amana
Entman: Dr. Robert M. Entman
Kambon: Mawiya Kambon, Ph.D.

Holloway: Blacks continue to be victims of negative stereotypes in the media, yet most of us still watch it. We’ll talk about how and why this continues to happen and what can be done about it. Next on Black Issues Forum. You stay tuned.

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Holloway: Good evening and welcome to Black Issues Forum, I’m Jay Holloway. We continue to see negative stereotypes of blacks on news, sports, advertising and entertainment media. Here tonight to help us understand how and why this has continued to happen and what can be done about it and to change these negative stereotypes in the media we have a distinguished panel. Tonight let me welcome Harry Amana, professor of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Dr. Robert M. Entman, Head of the Department of Communication at North Carolina State University and co-author of the book The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America, and also Dr. Mawiya Kambon, clinical psychologist and president of Obi Nka Bi Development Collective and co-owner of BlackNificent bookstore and cultural center. Thank you all for being with us this evening. We really appreciate it.

Dr. Entman, you have a very interesting book out, The Black Image in the White Mind, and I’d like you to talk about this if you can, initially to our general audience and our specific audience. What historical observations have you seen about this issue?

Entman: Well, what we see when we look at television and film is a great deal of progress in terms of blacks being very visible in the media now, which was not true 30 years ago. And it’s very easy to be relaxed and comfortable and say, “We’ve done what we need to do; no need to worry about this particular area,”

Holloway: But that’s not the case.

Entman: But what you find is a continued pattern of much more subtle stereotyping now than there used to be. So for example, although blacks appear a lot in movies, even in costarring roles, you still see a real difference in the way black and white heroes are treated. The white hero tends to be the one who controls the action, who figures out the solution, and the black hero is the one who supplies the muscle. That’s just one example.

Holloway: Professor Amana, you teach a course very similar to that. Is that consistent with what you’ve found and observed?

Amana: Yes, there’s been a—as he says—there’s been a transition. Today you have more diversity in prime time television, a lot of shows that have ensemble casts, but recent studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of the lead characters are still white males 40 and under with African-Americans playing subordinate roles, Latinos playing subordinate roles, unless it’s a single-race or predominantly single-race show, like Moesha or The Parkers, or one of those. So that when there is diversity, minority characters tend to play supportive roles.

Holloway: Dr. Kambon, we have quite a few images out there, but they continue to happen. Why do you think we’re continuing to have these images?

Kambon: If we look at the control of the media, certainly there are no blacks in control of the media. There have been attempts. I think Bill Cosby made an attempt to buy a major station at one point, but that was suppressed. And there is, I believe, an intent to keep that racist perspective. If you are not in control, then you can’t control the images and how they are portrayed. So I think it’s intentional, it’s intended on the part of those who own the media to portray blacks and others in certain ways and to make sure that we have a supremacist attitude when it comes to black people.

Entman: Can I step in here, since you wanted us to have a normal discussion. It seems to me important not to assume that there is intention. I mean, I think what’s happened for the most part is an intention to make money. And it is from the intention to make sure advertisers are happy, make sure the circulation or the ratings stay up, that flows these subtle racial, racist in some cases, images. If it were merely bad white racists running the major media, then we could get rid of this just like changing those people. And I’m afraid that’s not the case, that it’s more, there are some racists certainly in control of the media, but much more frequent, I think—and if you look at the content what you see, for example, is lots of shows that say racism is a bad thing, discrimination is a bad thing, and they then pat themselves on the back and go on. What they don’t want to do is confront the more subtle ways that racism operates now, because that might upset white audiences, might upset advertisers and diminish the bottom line.

Kambon: I disagree. I think that it is intentional, and we can see from the first image of blacks that was intended to create inferiority, was Birth of a Nation. It began to incite the white community that these blacks were beginning to come into power in this country. And therefore when Birth of a Nation came out, it changed everything. We then saw the Ku Klux Klan emerge from that and the many superiority kinds of issues emerge. I don’t believe it’s non-intended. I don’t believe it’s all subtle, even though the images may be subtle. I do believe that every attempt to rise blacks to positions of equality or empower them appears to be crushed, and I think there is a lot of information to support that if you would choose to look at studies done by blacks on the issues of white supremacy and racism in this country.

Holloway: Professor Amana, intentional or not? What’s your opinion?

Amana: I tend to think it’s more unintentional because—but I think it’s ingrained. I think that in the same way that the three males up here probably think of ourselves as progressive, but probably exhibit a whole lot of sexist behavior because we’ve been taught that, I think that institutionalized racism teaches us certain ways to think about things. When you look at one of the first black shows to appear on television, the Nat King Cole Show, it ran for a year, it was successful, but it couldn’t maintain—it wasn’t picked up again because in those days you had a single sponsor. And what they found was opposition in the South, which was absolute racism. They didn’t want Nat King Cole paling around with a lot of his white guests. And as a consequence, no one would pick up the sponsorship. Now, here we are in a more modern era and things are a little bit different, and the example I’ll give you is the Cosby Show: hugely successful, had all the numbers, etc. and it was a black, for all intent and purpose, a black show. That sort of contradicted that old message. What I mean is that the bottom line was, it made money. It was also successful with the numbers, and so it was one of the most successful African-American shows on television next to the series Roots, which was another one of those. Now, what one may argue is that Cosby and the characters that were portrayed in Roots were not as positive or as militant or as black—and that’s been argued, that Cosby was sort of a homogenized American family in tan face. But the fact remains that it was a highly successful show, had the numbers and, you know, was imitated. In fact, it’s the show that’s most pushed in the international community right now.

Holloway: As a standard. Dr. Entman, one of these subtle differences that you point out in your book is that you don’t see blacks and whites socializing or touching, so to speak. Is that what you’re talking about that may be one of the subtle forms?

Entman: Yes, it’s very interesting. If you look, for example, at NYPD Blue, until this year the person in charge was actually a black man, and he was very competent. But the very fact that he was the boss tended to isolate him from the rest of the characters. So you have a situation in which on the one hand, certainly the producers of this show must have been thinking, “Hey, we’re showing a black man who does a good job, very professional, he’s not a criminal, on the contrary, he’s the opposite of a criminal, and so we’re countering the stereotype.” Very good. But on the other hand, you have this problem that whereas you got to know Sipowicz and all these other characters and their intimate details as fully rounded human beings, Fancy—his name was Lieutenant Fancy—you never really get to know very well, and as a matter of fact the actor resigned from the series this past year, complaining about this problem. Now, was this because the producers of the show were racist and didn’t really want to let the white audience kind of understand him? Well, there may be some of that, but I think it’s also that they do polling, they do focus groups and they themselves are more comfortable and believe the majority audience is more comfortable with this kind of situation. You see this over and over in films as well. The judges tend to be black, I mean, way disproportionate to the number of black judges in the real world, but again, they’re competent, they are authority figures, they can be respected and that’s a good thing, that challenges racism; on the other hand, they are not really significant characters in the plot. They’re just kind of—they do automatic things. That’s where I think in many senses the problem in the media now is more the absence of information about blacks, more even than the stereotyping itself.

Holloway: Dr. Kamon, do you still believe that’s intentional?

Kamon: Yes, if you talk about institutional racism, that certainly is an intentional process, it’s not a side-effect of our world, let alone our country. And if you think, you know, if you take that example, for example, NYPD Blue, you have this competent character whose name is Fancy. How dignified is that, for one? You have him so that he doesn’t interact with others, and there is certainly an understanding that we know that there is a reason for him not being in, touching other whites in a more intimate way. And if you talk about polling, there are very few polls that exist that come from the black community. They are mostly middle class, white women who sit around watching television all day. So you don’t really have an impact or a presence of blacks in polling or in other ways.

And if you want to talk about bottom line in terms of advertising, we can look at how advertising also affects this whole issue. Who are the markets for some of the advertisers? Where do they intend to go? And what are the bottom lines and how do they come about? In the advertising industry it has taken quite a long time for even blacks to penetrate that industry, and there have been many documentaries shown where they intended not to have blacks in particular positions. So I think that we have to look at this holistically in terms of how this whole institution of racism has impacted the media.

Let me point out that two years ago, or not quite two years ago, the Congressional Black Caucus had a think tank on this same issue in their spring forum, and they invited the major media there to discuss the issues. What they talked about was the quantity of programs, and they wanted to boast on those shows that had or those stations that have more black shows. But if you look overall, even when there is a predominance, including the Cosby Show, the lead character, the man in that is not a positive strong figure. He is engaged in a lot of buffoonery, if you will.

Holloway: Well, speaking of that, we know that the consumption habits between blacks and whites are completely different. Blacks consume television and watch television programs at a higher rate than whites. We watch totally different programs as well. What about the responsibility on the viewers, the black viewers and the white viewers?

Amana: There’s been a lot on that recently. Well, let me back up a little bit. First of all, the most recent studies have shown that the divergence, the difference in what people watch is still there, but the latest data have shown that there are about eight or nine shows that fall into the top category for blacks and whites. For example, blacks looking at Millionare, blacks looking at 60 Minutes.

Entman: Survivor.

Amana: Survivor, yeah.

Holloway: So there’s only about three programs that are in common in the top ten?

Amana: No, there are about eight

Holloway: So there are more.

Amana: ... that are consistent top 20 shows for both races, but then when you look at the ones that are the top shows outside of Monday Night Football right away. Monday Night Football is number one for blacks and it’s number one for whites. But if you don’t look at that, if you take that out, then you get a lot of the shows that have all black characters that are on the WB or the UPN networks for blacks, and Friends and Judging Amy and a lot of others on the side for whites, so that there is some, but now there is some mingling. But that’s been very recently, in the last three years the studies have shown that there are more shows that people see in common.

But the other part of that is that blacks look at over 70 hours, black households look at over 70 hours of television a week, which is almost unthinkable. That’s 10 hours a day. And there has been some criticism by black leaders, the NAACP for example for some years how has been crusading for more inclusiveness behind the scenes for example, but that doesn’t speak to the other issue of how many of our families are watching the boob tube and the effects that that may have on them. There have also been some correlations between the amount, the number of hours that a child watches television and reading levels and grades and that kind of thing. I don’t think it’s conclusive, but there have been some parallels that show that kids who tend to look at more television tend to do less well in school.

Holloway: And we also want to say that all television is not bad, it’s what television you are watching. For example, a program like this doesn’t have the ratings that those sitcoms and buffoonery-type shows would have.

Entman: Exactly.

Holloway: What is the white mind saying when watching these programs or these images or black characters?

Entman: Well, in The Black Image in the White Mind we really find the evidence is that whites, there are about 20% of whites who are just racist and there is not much hope for them, and there are about 20% who are actually very strongly progressive on racial issues, they favor affirmative action, they even favor racial quotas and preferences.

Holloway: They’re probably watching this program.

Entman: And they may be the ones who are watching. But it’s actually, I think, some of the 60% in between. That is the target group, it seems to me. These are people who are not out-and-out racist; they are conflicted. They don’t understand. They are fearful. And that’s where I think the media have a responsibility to try to fill in some of that sort of misunderstanding and fear with more context, more thorough information, such as providing more fleshed out characters in top television shows. And I think television could be more daring and still succeed. Advertising is a very interesting barometer of this in that you see, it’s obvious that advertisers just throw in black faces in lots and lots of ads so they’ve got some diversity, but if you look carefully, not only do the blacks not touch whites and vice versa, they don’t even touch each other. I was just watching this morning a Ralph Lauren ad, and the first time those ads ran there was only one black face—you know there are about 15 or 20 black faces, real quick cuts on them—now he’s got about three, but every time you see people together, it’s white people together. It’s not blacks and whites together. It’s not even blacks together. So there are these subtle images that I think are sort of unconscious on the part of the people who put together the advertising, which probably reflects the unconscious way of thinking among the audience, and that’s what has to be attacked, it seems to me assuming, you know, we’re not going to change the capitalist system. We’re not going to change the fact that the bottom line is the most important thing to these organizations.

Holloway: Let’s talk about how we resolve this, what are the solutions? One of the things in terms of who is responsible is that we consume, are the consumers of the media. And if you cut it off, the bottom line is not there and hopefully you can impact that. But we talked about blacks consuming media at a much higher rate. Why is that, that we as African-Americans consume the media at such a higher rate than our white counterparts?

Kambon: You know, in general it’s believed that whites, middle class and upper, tend to have greater access to income so that their entertainment choices are more diverse. For the majority of black people who tend to be of lower income, they have television. It used to be that children could be outside playing, but it’s become so dangerous, their parents can’t let their children outside so they let the television babysit them. I also want to say that this is a multi, multi-billion dollar industry, this marketing and this advertising. They don’t leave anything to chance. So we know that there sometimes they put—what do you call it—there are flashes that go into some of the movies where they have a Coca-Cola thing or…

Holloway: Subliminal.

Kambon: Not even subliminal, you know, where they pay to have these spots.

Entman: Product placement.

Holloway: Product placement, okay.

Kambon: Product placements, you know. So that is why I counter the fact that these are subtle kinds of things that happen in the media, because they know exactly who they target, how they target and what affects them. They do the studies on it. We know that they will go out and send anthropologists into settings and record information that teenagers are saying and then come back and make and do studies and decide how they will impact these teenagers. I mean, the whole thing about tobacco and how they targeted young people, and beer and all those and how we only find beer and cigarette advertisements now in black publications, like Ebony and Essence and things like that. Those are intentional kinds of things. So if we want to impact those kinds of things, it’s not as easy to say, “Get rid of these folks,” if they are in charge, because they also have the money that controls it. What we have to do is help to educate our people to be more conscious, educate our children, give them some alternatives. I think even lobbying some of these groups to put on, include psychologists on their production series so that we can see how these things impact our people, how they impact children and begin to make some significant changes in what’s produced.

Holloway: Professor Amana, what about the responsibility of the black professionals in the media towards this?

Amana: I mean, there’s been considerable talk by black professionals about this. I was paraphrasing, actually, a reporter from the Boston Globe in talking about the NAACP’s push being in the wrong direction. There’s been criticism, but ultimately it falls back on the individual family. We’ve got enough power in our own hands to control what our children watch.

Holloway: Turn it off.

Amana: Yeah, to turn it off or not even have one. I think it’s absurd to have a television in children’s rooms. I think one way you control television is, if you’re going to have a set, is to have one set and have it downstairs in the living room where it’s controlled. So that’s one of the things, but the other thing is I think they are very smart people, as you point out, but they are not as smart as we give them credit for being. That’s why so many of their shows fail. They have done the marketing studies for everything, but a huge percentage of their shows fail or a huge percentage of their advertising fails. The reader, the viewer, always brings something of herself or himself to the table, and there are some interesting studies that show that in spite of what was intended by the message maker, the receivers have picked up entirely different messages or incorporated some of the things in their own life into that message and made some use of that. So that it’s not, like, as if we are robots that the media just fills in and we respond accordingly. That’s what makes the mix so difficult for these people to figure out.

Holloway: Professor Entman, let me ask you, in your book you say that despite all of these disturbing trends that racial separation can be successfully bridged. What are some of the guidelines you are talking about?

Entman: Well, I think the most important thing, and both of our other speakers have hinted at this, is political pressure. It seems to me we have devoted a huge industry to studying media and violence and every year we have very detailed studies of how much violence has increased or decreased in the media and some measures of the effects. What I would like to see is a national focus in a similar way on media and race and ethnicity, so that we have reports not just on how many blacks are in TV shows, but really goes into the details the way the violence studies do. And that would heighten, I think, understanding among everyone and also make it more possible to put real political pressure. And I really do believe that’s the most important thing. The economics, unfortunately, may still tend toward the majority audience and their fears and pleasures, but if you can counterbalance that with some political pressure that goes way beyond what the NAACP has done so far, which I salute, but none the less a lot more can be done, especially if it’s backed by a consistent series of studies, monitoring over time. So we can see, “Yeah, we’ve made some progress, but we really haven’t made nearly as much as the networks and Hollywood would like us to think.”

Amana: I think the progress, the extent to which progress has been made, it’s a point well taken because the Kerner Commission, as you know in ‘68, Chapter 15 on the media, established a fact that we had a racist media. As a result of that it triggered a whole series of things, primarily with hiring. And then we had a study in the ‘70s on Window Dressing On The Set with the U.S. Civil Rights Commission which talked about the roles of women and blacks on television in prime time and on news that while we saw some people on the set, up front, behind the scenes there were no people. And also that the majority of blacks and women at that time in prime time drama and series, prime time they were basically buffoons and secondary characters. Well, here we are 30 years later and there’s still a lot of that. I mean, that’s what the new studies show.

Holloway: And I’ll tell you, we want to thank you all for helping us to see these different viewpoints and the choices that we all have to make. Thank you all for really helping us, enlightening us on this subject here. Of course, each of us are the sum total of the choices we have made and hopefully tonight’s program has helped inform you about the media images you watch and support. Now the choice is yours. Take advantage of all the advice and resources to help you make wiser decisions on the kinds of programs you watch and support—or watch and support those programs that further promote the negative stereotypes of blacks in media. For more information on tonight’s program and our guests, send us your comments, visit us online at www.unctv.org, or call us at (919) 549-7167. For Black Issues Forum, a program that does promote positive images and discusses the tough issues, I’m Jay Holloway. Please join us again every Friday night at 9:30 only on UNC-TV. You have a blessed evening. Good night.

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