Diversity and Racial issues

The topic of the day was diversity. During the discussion of being aware of race representations in the media Sharon Bramlett-Solomon (at left) spoke her ideas and opinions about the issue.

What follows below is not meant to be any type of comment dismissing Bramlett-Solomon's discussion, but rather additional questions that came tm ind during her presentation.

One of the initial comments she made was that she examined the representation of blacks in The Arizona Republic and found that in eight out of 10 photographs they were shown in an unfavorable way - being in need, or underprivileged. What Bramlett-Solomon did not share during the conversation was how often the white people in the paper were also shown as being in need. I say this not to try to discredit her statement (as her statement is factual and the issue does need addressing) - but to give some comparison. After all, newspapers are full of stories about the problems in our world.

Conflict sells. But I ask if the majority of the photos of white people are favorable? Or, is there a bias in the paper to show ALL people in an unfavorable light? She said she had a discussion with the photography higher-ups at the paper and things improved. Certainly showing the majority of the photos of black people in unfavorable ways is not a good thing. But is it really an issue of a certain race being singled out, or is it the nature of the news industry to show the majority of all people in bad light? Does the newspaper simply have an issue of reporting unfavorably about many people and topics?

I do not have answers. I did not talk at length with her about the entire study she did. Maybe the conclusions need to be beyond "look how they are portraying black people" and instead need to be "look how they are portraying all people."

Regardless of what the answers to my questions are, the one thing that must continue to happen is our civilization must continue to have dialogues about race and culture. Perceptions of bias, real or imagined, absolutely do need to be hammered out to a fair resolution.
_______________
Jeff Jones
Miyamura High School
Gallup, NM