In the introduction to the section on understanding social control in Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, Paula Rothenberg states “The most effective forms of social control are always invisible”(507). One of the most prevalent forms of invisible social control the creation and perpetuation of stereotypes. Studies have shown that stereotypes can become so ingrained in the minds of those exposed to them that the target of the stereotype might not only believe the mythological image, but also inadvertently act out the image they are expected to play (Snyder). In addition, those who subscribe to the stereotypical images of others will “notice and remember the ways in which that person seems to fit the stereotype, while resisting evidence that contradicts the stereotype”(Snyder 514). Stereotypes control by creating false images that work to maintain the status quo and keep those who hold power in their positions of power.

For stereotypes to be an effective method of social control, they must be created, dispersed and perpetuated. Though the process of using stereotypes as social control is invisible, as Rothenberg declares, the distribution

Marilyn Frye discusses Oppression in terms of a birdcage metaphor (Frye 141). One rejected job application or one portrayal of a Black man as a buffoon or the Black woman domestic worker so pleased to serve her white family may not be oppressive; they may seem like isolated events. You can look at them as a single bar, a small barrier. Those around you wonder why you cannot just fly around that one bar (“get over it”) and move on. But when you take a wider perspective and see that the individual bars make up a cage from which you cannot escape, that is oppression. The inundation of images of oneself as criminal, animalistic, and all smiles while being ridiculed, compounded onto limited access to resources and everyday encounters with racism, form a steel cage from which the Black American must try very hard to escape. The presentation of stereotypical images on television are not the root cause of discrimination and oppression, but the prevalence of these images is most certainly not helpful in eradication the systems of oppression.

The Ford study based its hypothesis on the effects of priming in making judgements about particular social groups. Two groups of white students were shown comedy skits depicting either negative stereotypes or neutral behavior starring black actors. Then the subjects were asked to, based on circumstantial evidence, determine whether a young man, Todd in half of the situations or Tyrone in the other half, was guilty of assaulting his roommate. (An earlier study showed that almost all surveyed associated the name Todd with a white man and Tyrone with a black man.) The connection between the primer- the skits, and the judgement was not known by the subjects; they were told the studies were unrelated. Researchers found that subjects who were shown the negative stereotypical images were more likely to assume Tyrone, an African American, was guilty than those who had seen the neutral images. Todd’s guilt rating was not affected by the priming.

In the presentation of such images, the producers show ambivalence, not action towards changing the status quo or disrupting the strength of these images. Gray classifies the images of Blacks created by Black Americans on In Living Color as no less ambivalent than those created by whites like Archie or Alf. In Living Color’s construction of blackness “at its best disturbs existing regimes of blackness”-like the ones on Beulah, et al- “and, at its worst, provides the cultural terms through which racial subordination is legitimated and reproduced”(Gray 132). Because there is overwhelming research proving the link between stereotypical images and the way people deal with the target of that stereotype, the inundation of negative stereotypes on television does not serve the purpose of dispelling racism, but more likely perpetuates it.

The prevalence of negative stereotypical images of Black Americans on television, especially as criminals, is undeniable. From the beginnings of television, Blacks have been singled out for their “blackness”. This singling out based solely on race and not individual characteristics only widens the racial gap and legitimates the division of humans based on a defining principle that some scientists doubt the very existence of- that being race. The first Black images on television were of Amos and Andy, scamming, dancing, and acting like buffoons. Buffoons whose previous radio characters had been played by white actors. From to Beulah to 21 Jump Street to Seinfeld, normative portrayals of people of color have been noticeably absent.

An example of the backfire and negative effects that can result from presenting racism in a humorous context on television was the audience response to the British television show Till Death Do Us Part. Alf, the main character, was a reactionary, racist bigot. The show’s writer intended to “ridicule, through Alf, the kinds of attitudes which underpinned the Briti

Some topics in this essay:
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