Abstract
The Black experience in American society as depicted through mass media is complex, and its nuances are not always adequately and accurately captured. Although racial bias and systemic mechanisms that contribute to these depictions are studied in mass communication scholarship, it is not often that a convergence of these issues are brought together within one comprehensive resource.
Racialism and the Media: Black Jesus, Black Twitter and the First Black American President offers insight into these relevant issues through exploration of the African American experience and Black culture while highlighting how issues of race and racism are entrenched in the norms of mass media production. From Black Twitter and Black television to politics and religious satire, Venise T. Berry, an associate professor in African American Studies at the University of Iowa, investigates racial construction in mass media, the evolution of racial ideology, and how mass media has moved beyond racism to what the author calls “racialism.” Berry suggests that to understand these dynamics and to move toward real changes in American society related to race relations, one should move beyond denouncing problematic depictions of African Americans in mass media as racism or racist to instead see the problem in terms of normalized depictions of African Americans. With this subtle but important turn, mass communication scholarship shifts to understanding why this is the case. Through a critical cultural perspective, the author contextualizes her argument by drawing on scholarship in stereotypes of African Americans, media bias, microaggressions, and Black identity to illustrate how racialism is personified through exemplars in advertising, music, novels, entertainment television, and social media. Racialism and the Media: Black Jesus, Black Twitter and the First Black American President is part of the Black studies and critical thinking educational series from Peter Lang Publishing.
The text relies on the theoretical underpinnings of critical race theory to articulate how racialism—“images, ideas and issues that are produced, distributed, and consumed repetitively and intertextually based on stereotypes, biased framing and historical myths about African American culture” (p. 3)—is a product of today’s racial ideology and is normalized through the persistent messages and images of African Americans in mass media. The book is divided into 10 chapters with provocative titles that illustrate the strong racial undertones that the text explores. For example, in “Contemporary Zip Coons: The Problem with Funny,” Berry examines how cinematic roles played by Black male celebrities such as actor Will Smith and actor/comedian Eddie Murphy portray African American males as funny yet ignorant, aggressive, loud talking, and ill-dressed caricatures of Black men, all of which are attributes of accepted stereotypes within society that continue to be perpetuated for the sake of capital. In “Ghettofabulous: How Low Can You Go?” Berry assesses the predominant frames in Black reality television, news, and music suggesting that flashy jewelry, fighting, and ignorance are ideals of Black culture.
Terminology unique to Black culture is introduced but operationalized in a manner that allows readers to understand important concepts. Analysis of these racial themes is interwoven with scholarship from thought-leaders in their perspective areas of critical race studies, and the connections made between theoretical concepts is a strength of this text. However, while exemplars discussed in this book confirm current scholarship regarding the strong presence and evidence of stereotypical and racial depictions of African Americans, the author offers the beginnings of an argument on racialism that requires further exploration and only teases the possibilities of how this analysis can contribute to a deeper understanding of race in mass media. For instance, in “A Satirical Parody: Black Jesus in the Hood,” Berry explores the intersections of religion, satire, and its assimilation into Black culture through an animated cartoon. This brief analysis of the show’s script was fascinating and introduced an unexplored area in media analysis. However, the chapter could have easily stood alone as a separate book as there were several concepts intertwined in the 12-page chapter.
The influx of topics exploring the complex intersections of race in various forms in mass media leaves the reader wanting more, nibbling only on a small bite among a platter of rich content. For example, the captivating title encompasses the heart of the book; however, the chapter on Black Twitter offers only a brief analysis of the phenomenon via an examination of popular hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter and #WakandaForever. And the chapter on President Barack Obama’s historic presidency, which highlighted the intersections of race, politics, bias, and microaggressions as amplified through mass media, was covered in just over eight pages of text.
Nevertheless, Racialism and the Media: Black Jesus, Black Twitter and the First Black American President is a timely, eye-opening book on the realities of how these normalized depictions of African Americans in mass media should be concerning to media practitioners, consumers, and scholars alike. While Berry draws from multiple scholars and theories to carry the argument, she has written each chapter in accessible prose for nonacademic readers who wish to understand the nuances of race that are prevalent in contemporary mass media. In all, this book opens the door to future scholarship in an area where there are many opportunities for further exploration on the intersections of mass communication and CRT scholarship.
