JOMC441 wrap up

After taking JOMC 441 how has this course shaped your view of the role of diversity in the media including: images, employment, access, coverage.

This course has certainly opened my eyes to the role that cultural, racial and gender minorities play in the media. I had always thought I was perceptive in recognizing and gauging stereotypes perpetuated by the mass media, but I never had an opportunity to explore the nuances of stereotyping before this class. Now, as I read the newspaper or watch TV, I feel like I am hypersensitive to the portrayal of minorities, their roles as characters and the images they represent. Now that I have taken this class, I feel like I am more educated as to why certain minorities are depicted the way they are and how the media functions to continually perpetuate these portrayals.

To me, it was especially disturbing reading about diversity quotas in employment practices and the current discrimination minorities are facing in the workplace. The fact that anglicizing a name on a resume to secure a second glance even has to cross a person's mind, to me, is an indicator of a terrible societal trend. This class has taught me that there are still so many racially fueled issues that exist and although we have made sizable strides since the Civil Rights era, we still have a very long way to go to be able to enjoy a truly equitable and harmonious society.

Cultural Center on Campus

Please visit one of the following campus centers and blog about your experience there. Post to your personal blog.

The Sonya Hanes Stone Black Cultural Center is one of the foremost cultural centers on UNC’s campus. The center was originally referred to as the Black Cultural Center upon its inception in 1988, but was renamed in 1991 to commemorate a prominent faculty member, Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone.

I visited the Sonya Hanes Stone Black Cultural Center, more commonly known to students simply as the “Stone Center,” this past Monday to get a better understanding of the center’s mission and purpose. Written on one of the walls on the bottom floor of the center was the center’s mission: To "encourage and support the critical examination of all dimensions of African-American, African and African diaspora cultures through sustained and open discussion, dialogue and debate...". I had never known the Stone Center to be a place of such cultural dialogue, as most of the time I had spent in the building previously had been for drama classes and an environmental studies recitation.

Before examining the Stone Center with a critical eye, I had never noticed that it was a center for African-American and African diaspora discussion and academic debate. In fact, it was only until I visited the center’s Web site that I realized the intense ties it holds to African culture and society. There are no tell-tale signs of African culture throughout the building and up until this Monday when I went on an assignment for this class, I had no idea that it was an academic building distinguishable from others.

To me, the center feels almost institutional in nature, with hardly any characteristics setting it apart from other buildings on campus. Perhaps that was the goal--to create a center and site for research and education—but I feel like the cultural aspect is certainly lost, the intense cultural value going unnoticed by the typical passerby.

In Job Hunt College Degree Can't Close Racial Gap

This article presented some very disturbing information and alluded to very alarming trends in public perception of race. The fact that someone would not be considered for a job for no other reason than their race is unfathomable to me. Perhaps I am naive, or maybe I'm just particularly unaware of racial differences, but I really find it disheartening that this kind of discrimination continues to this day. The position should be filled by the most qualified candidate. If that candidate is a white male from an Ivy League school, then fine. But if the best candidate is an African American graduate of a Historically Black University or College, then there is absolutely no justifiable reason as to why they should not be offered the position. Race is no longer something that should prohibit success and the people who continue to think differently are perpetuating an incredibly antiquated and convoluted view of the world.

The article suggests that this surge in workplace discrimination can be attributed to the public perception of Obama's presidency as being sufficient racial and societal advancement, insinuating that there is only so much progress the country can handle. This outrageous assertion is disheartening, if nothing else. Let's hope that people of all educational levels can realize the absurdity in that mentality and that Americans can transcend racial boundaries and develop a workforce based on merit, rather than on the basis of race.

On our campus

The two most controversial statues on our university’s campus stand only 100 yards apart on McCorkle Place. The Unsung Founders Memorial, a statue of 300 2-foot tall black figures carrying a polished tabletop, and the Confederate Monument, memorializing the 321 UNC alumni who fought in the Civil War, are representative of two very different—perhaps conflicting—ideas. In fact, the Unsung Founders Memorial was only recently added to McCorkle Place in 2002, in response to criticism of the Confederate Monument, standing 20 feel tall since 1913.

The fact that they have been placed so close to one another is, to me, almost offensive. They represent such opposing ideologies and commemorate such different people that I feel like the decision of where to position them should have been more seriously considered. How can people be expected to pay the intended respect to the Unsung Founders Memorial without being bombarded by a 20-foot statue of Confederate soldier, Silent Sam? The obviously intentional placement and juxtaposition of these two statues is a blatant breach of respect for the Unsung Founders Memorial, making it more of a mockery than a commemorative statue.

The fact that the Unsung Founders Memorial is a 2-foot high table that people eat at is also disturbing. Memorials are supposed to hold the subject(s) in the utmost esteem, commemorating them for their contribution to society at large. It is embarrassing that the Unsung Founders Memorial is called a memorial. Despite potentially good intentions, the table…is a table. Something people eat off of. Not something people will inherently value for the subjects’ good deeds and contribution to the university.

The offensiveness of the statue has little to do with the choice of artist. Although a black artist might have been more sensitive in the design of the memorial and possibly wouldn’t have made it also function as a table, it is the location and positioning of the statue virtually next to the Confederate Monument that bothers me the most.