When I Saw What They Saw When They Saw Me.
Realizing the true power of perception.
Scary. Sexy. Angry. Crazy. Ghetto. Strong. Exotic. Nubian. Sistah.
Prescribed to me over the years by people on different continents, from different backgrounds, who knew me well or barely at all, these are the descriptions that have landed in my lap. Unwelcome and often unheard, I learned to break off bits of myself, twist myself into distorted shapes, push myself into places not made for me to fit, all to shed a skin that wasn’t my own to begin with.
Perception. According to Merriam Webster, to perceive is
a: to attain awareness or understanding of
b: to regard as being such
So, how do we attain awareness and understanding of people? How do we assign attributes, especially to those not in our immediate family or environment? This question is one of the main reasons I’ve gone into media.
People of color are not themselves in film and television. They serve as vehicles for the story arch of a white protagonist, and often they are reduced to one dimensional stereotypes. Black people are violent thugs with no families or backstories. Latinos are drug dealing gangsters in folded bandannas. Asians are emasculated nerds who fly into bouts of martial arts. Indigenous people, well they’re erased completely.
Media (film, television, news, magazines, etc…) shapes our perception of the world we live in and the people who inhabit it. And media is, to put it lightly, fucking up its entire job. Media, like most things in our country, contains an inherent bias. At times intentional, other times subconscious. Always, always dangerous.
The stereotypes we see on screen, in newspapers, in magazines, in video games, affect lives in the real world. Because people of color are portrayed in media without jobs, as criminals and without inner lives, they are less likely to be hired, less likely to be trusted, less valued and more likely to be killed. This runs deep. The news over represents black people as perpetrators of violent crime when news coverage is compared with arrest rates, doesn’t bring them on as experts to clarify given topics, shows them in scenarios of poverty more often, and often omits the names of dead black men.
These are supposed to be fact driven, unbiased sources, so you can imagine what fictional t.v. and film are like. These images create perceptions. These perceptions drive actions.
There was a law that allowed gay people to be on t.v. only if they were punished for their predilections. This was to teach people watching that being gay was bad and punishable. And it worked. Lgbtqia+ have been for years portrayed as derelict, perverted, pedophilic, and most often dead. For years, gay characters have appeared on screen only to be brutally murdered. Not a trope. An intentional message.
It is no coincidence that murder and suicide rates are higher in indigenous communities who only see themselves on screen as violent and doomed to a painful death, when they see themselves at all. It is not a coincidence that trans people are beaten, killed and attacked by the very people supposed to protect them. It is no coincidence that Hispanic children sit in cages when their parents are perceived as drug dealing gangsters, their children deserving of their fate.
People care about people that they perceive as people. That perception stems from their portrayal in the media. To be clear, systemic change needs to happen in education, law, housing, business, prison reform, banking, food, medicine and pretty much every other part of life. While that change happens, media is in need of a huge overhaul, because perception of humanity affects every single other part of the system. It is literally life and death. Until people of color, women, lgbtqia+, people with disabilities, immigrants, and every other underestimated group is seen as human and equal, real change cannot happen; people cannot live in peace.
Amber Lee-Adadevoh | Executive Producer | Mission Based Projects
