Monthly Archives: May 2010

Hello World!

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America’s youth are not the only impressionable demographic in our society when it comes to media images.  It is too often assumed that adults are immune to media’s advertising tactics, various biases, and even racial stereotypes.  While advertisements intend to sway the consumer one way or another, media coverage of specific races often influences people just as much.

I believe that a truly diverse society provides examples of positive and negative role models divided equally among races and professions.  For example, it is important to see Hispanic politicians and business figures in addition to baseball players so that all people can believe in the American Dream and to avoid racial telecasting.

I believe that these minority role models in high profile fields outside of athletics exist quietly outside the focus of media today.  In light of the repeated missteps by figures of all races currently filling the role of cultural icons, I think we need to entertain the idea of giving the public a new set of figures to idolize, emulate, and learn from.  This new set of models is the group of people I want to interview and focus on for Profiles in Influence.

My target audience is the consumer of mainstream American media, all ages and races.  I want to expose successful individuals doing as much with their lives as athletes and movie stars, not in a paparazzi-like manner but in a way that brings awareness to their existence.  Spotlighting these individuals provides the American people with a new set of figures to recognize, emulate, and aspire to be like and will hopefully diminish racial stereotypes and typecasting.

I am not anti-celebrity.  I believe that the focus of modern media needs to expand to include more figures rather than replace the existing ones.  I do not want to remove the news of Lil Wayne’s one-year jail sentence from televisions; I do want a story on a powerful black person helping to build a school or earning an award.

My first obstacle in designing my study was deciding what aspect of this issue to focus on.  I discovered that there are many aspects of this issue and I am interested in all of them.  These aspects include; America’s inability to move past racial stereotypes, our infatuation with celebrities, where the problem begins or why these figures are left in the shadows, how to actually solve the problem, and an in depth conversation of the problem itself.

I chose to tackle the difficult task of solving the problem.  Too many people recognize the problem as I did but do not think about ways to solve it.  I talked with Dr. Bryan Washington about how this problem is a continuation of the American Civil Rights Movement.  He agreed saying that it is the responsibility of my generation to continue moving forward and that is exactly what I am trying to do.

Why am I doing this?

This project is personal.  I was born in Florida and adopted by a family from Gorham, Maine.  Growing up with few black role models I drew my images of black success and achievement from the media more than anything else.  These images led me to believe that I would be a professional basketball player and that was how I would succeed.  In high school I realized how impossible this dream was and I realized I did not have a career alternative.

My realization caused me to re-evaluate my career choice and luckily I had the resources to do exactly that.  Now in 2010 I am graduating from Lafayette College with a degree in American Studies hoping to pursue a career in public relations and media.  I think that it is important for people everywhere to see that there are people of all races succeeding in all professions in this country instead of realizing it at such a late age, as I did, or not at all.

It took me a long time to overcome being told by peers that I am not black enough because they believe being black is what they see on television, musicians, athletes, and movie stars.  I now realize that this is the result of a culture infatuated with celebrity.  As I said I appreciate celebrities.  I am a Lakers fan and I love all types of music, consuming popular culture is a large part of my life but I have realized that it is important to include the members of the black upper-middle class in my set of role models.  To me being black does often involve a struggle, but not always the rags to riches struggle that is sometimes assumed, instead the struggle I undertook was in finding my identity as a black man.

My Pitch

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Dear Reader,

My name is Max Bass. I am a senior at Lafayette College majoring in American Studies. Through research I am conducting, I have concluded that athletes have a disproportionately strong impact on the racial consciousness of Americans.  I want to work to provide additional role models of highly accomplished members of minority groups in artistic and professional fields other than athletics.

Athletic role models had a large impact on my life and it took me a while to realize the lack of minority icons outside of sports and popular culture. To create more balance, I want to create a series of Podcasts from interviews with alternative icons. This project, in addition to creating a new resource for role models, will also assist me as I continue my research on racial consciousness.

My goal with these interviews is to examine different perspectives from influential figures about racial role models and promoting a consciousness of accomplishments in areas that transcend stereotypes.   The intent of this project is wholly educational and not for profit in any way.

Sincerely,

Max Bass ‘10

George Bright

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George Bright Interview

George Bright already knew me when I walked into his office.  I did not know him but he knew me as the face of our college’s a cappella group.  I was honored and a little surprised that I had a fan in the athletic department, I am not an athlete, but Bright told me he is a musician in addition to his work as Athletic Director.

Bright is the first person I have interviewed who is involved in one of the fields I associate with those currently in the focus of the media, athletics.  Bright, however, is much more than an athlete or a man involved in sports, he is well rounded and involved.  He works hard in the Easton community where he was born to improve youth groups, clean up the streets, and promote his faith through his church.

He agreed with my points about the media needing to include minorities succeeding in business, politics, and fields outside of celebrities.  We talked about how there are many case examples, like President Obama, but that minorities are not consistently represented.  He mentioned the heroes he had growing up, both celebrities and intellectuals, and we talked about how these people who gave back to their people were powerful role models.  We noted to contrast between these men, like Bill Cosby, and many of today’s celebrities.

Bright talked about how to inspire the media to recognize the upper-middle class minorities and how to expose young people to their existence, we must pass the torch.  Kids need to be informed about the impact of a college education and their ability to achieve success beyond high school.  I was honored that Bright included me when he said that our leaders need to empower the youth.

Chawne Kimber

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Audio for Interview with Professor Chawne Kimber

My interview with Lafayette math Professor Chawne Kimber was interesting.  I realized that there are people working hard to solve the problems that I have identified and that they are meeting some opposition.  Professor Kimber’s Summer Leadership Program is designed to provide students opportunities for success in fields where they are underrepresented.  I was surprised to learn about the difficulties she faced in creating this program.

Another thing I took away from the interview was something that I am not sure how to react to.  Kimber talked about how she learned to accept the fact that people hated her based on factors she could not control.  I believe that this is much less common now, but the problem I had was her acceptance of it.  Listening to the interview I can’t help but think about how hard it is to accept something like that whether it is gender, race, or financial situation.

Professor Kimber was open with stories about her supportive family and how they helped her deal with living in the South, which was tough at times.  She realizes that she is in a position now to make an easier path for students to succeed than she had, and she is working hard to make that possible.  Last summer her leadership program had nine students and they all benefited greatly from her work with them.  It is great to see more and more people who have had success and are paying it forward, and even better to see that those people working to solve the problem are the same people I am  interviewing.

Notes on the Bryan Washington Interview

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My second interview with Dr. Bryan Washington was disappointing, not because of the subject or the conversation but because my recorder failed to pick up our voices during the interview. Despite this malfunction I did take away several important points from the interview as I improved my focus on my questions zeroing in on how to solve the problem instead of talking about it.  Dr. Washington is the son of a college professor who founded one of the first black studies programs in the nation, and he talked about how his upbringing was not typical for a black American.

As I took notes on Dr. Washington talking about his upbringing with a black intellectual as his father, we discussed how the media has had a powerful hand in defining what it means to be black. Dr. Washington talked about what he calls the complexity of blackness and remembered being told that he was not black enough as a child because he was not interested in sports and music, the black professions.  He went on to talk about how people often fail to recognize the complexity of blackness and how it is in part due to the images of black people presented by the media.  Black people not only provide diversity in American society, but there is much diversity within the race all of which adds up to define what it means to be black.  Dr. Washington talked about the black upper and upper-middle class, a group he believes is commonly ignored by the media and as a result is not seen by the country.

This concept of the upper-middle class remaining in the shadows nailed my issue on the head, except I want to create interest in addition to recognition.  I asked him how he envisioned the recognition of this “other half” as he called it, happening.  He replied that, “having a presence, and making (positive) noise in high profile professions,” is the way for these people to get recognized.  He described the necessity for black people to “make noise” as part of the saying that blacks must work twice as hard to earn half as much.  His next point brought about a realization for me.  He said that now that we have a black president in Barack Obama, many Americans believe that racism has been eliminated from society.

My realization connected back to Dr. McCartney’s point about revelation and discovery instead of complaint.  Though I agreed with many of Dr. Washington’s points, I think that they have been identified and I wanted answer the question, how do we solve it?  So I asked exactly that.  A reflective Dr. Washington told me that in his case his family was the factor that kept him focused on goals outside of the so called “black professions”.  He also recognized that there are positives examples among the celebrity elite and that we do not need to eliminate them from the headlines.  I agreed, it is not a case of subtraction and then addition, it is simply addition.  We need more role models in more professions.

Dr. Washington’s point about his family is an important one because of the image of the struggling minority family.  A strong, supportive family emphasizes the sense of self-worth that Dr. McCartney talked about and Dr. Washington talked about living with.  We often hear about children losing their way in life due to family issues but we rarely hear about how it impacts their aspirations and dreams for their future. A strong, supportive family is not always possible regardless of race, but I realized the importance of having someone to encourage a child and give them the tools to succeed.

Our interview concluded with more discussion of president Barack Obama.  Regardless of politics we discussed the fact that many people had cast their vote in the 2008 Presidential Election with his race on their mind, whether it was the reason they were voting for or against him.  I think this is due to the unfortunate belief that one’s race says something about one’s ability to perform, much like a character trait.  We talked about celebrities receiving popular media coverage from decisions made that perpetuate these beliefs as they live the negative stereotypes that have been engrained in people since black people were brought onto American soil.  I asked him if he believed that we were making progress towards the lofty goal of a post-racial society.  He responded that he believes we have a long way to go but as long as the recognition is there we can continue to move the conversation and our society forward.

First Interview with Dr. John McCartney

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Interview with Dr. John McCartney Audio

My first interview was an important learning experience.  I realized a lot about the interview process and how a half-hour chat leaves little time to dance around a topic.  I need to develop a series of questions that quickly and efficiently get at my main objective, to figure out how to expose a new set of role models to the American people.  In my first interview I spent too much time talking about the existence of the problem and not enough time discussing ways to expose the influential figures and solve the problem.  As the interviewer I need to take control of the direction of the interview, while my interviewees may be content to talk about the issue, I need to push them to go farther and attempt to solve the problem.  Imagine that, the new role models bringing themselves out of the shadows.

My first interview was with Dr. John McCartney, a professor and the head of the Government and Law department at Lafayette College.  Before the interview began, a reflective and intelligent McCartney discussed his involvement in the political scene in the Bahamas, and seemed intrigued by my study and my story behind why I am doing this.  McCartney ran for Parliament in the Bahamas in the 1970s and was politically active in the area for more than ten years.  I knew that I could learn a lot from Dr. McCartney but I was worried that he might not agree with me or see the issue as I saw it.  This was the flaw in my first interview.

As I asked my first questions introducing my topic and my interview subject I found that he was as passionate about the issue as I was.  This gave me more confidence but also threw me off topic as I spent the majority of the interview talking about the problem’s existence and not about how to remedy it.  McCartney talked about the direction America’s ongoing conversation on race and how he has, through his courses, politics, and published works, worked to tell the story of an entire people.

McCartney talked about how the sense of self worth as a young black person can lead to exploration beyond the media’s portrayal of minorities.  He talked about the influence of a person’s media image has created a sense of superficiality among today’s leaders.  Given the charge of solving the problem, Dr. McCartney suggested that the increase in black people attending college and traveling abroad as Americans representing their country would help, over-riding the superficiality our media can project.

In reflecting on these comments it is clear that the persisting segregation between minority cultures in America (Black Culture, Asian Culture, Hispanic Culture) and American culture is a source of the problem I have identified.  Dr. McCartney called for more black youth representing their country abroad and at universities, which I completely agree with.  It took me until the middle of high school to completely realize that the media images were not going to define my life.