Ever since Rochelle Alleyne
was 10 years old, she knew she was
going to be a reporter. As a youngster, the 21-year-old telecommunications
senior would create make-believe newscasts for her family in their living room.
She has since interned with CNN in Atlanta, Georgia, andreports weekly for local TV
stations in Gainesville. But
even at a young age she couldn’t help but notice
there were few people on TV who looked like her:
dark-skinned with curly hair.
A
report released earlier this month by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research took a look
at the two fastest-growing minority populations in
America: African
Americans and Hispanics. According to
the report, both groups are adopting digital technology, including mobile news,
at increasing rates. Despite their acceptance of this developing media, however,
only a third of Hispanics and a quarter of African Americans believe their
communities are accurately portrayed in the media.
“Usually most TV shows you
watch have that one token black kid to come say something funny,” Alleyne said.
“It’s kind of funny, but it’s also sad because that’s not the way life is.
There is always more than one black person in group settings in real life.”
Giselle Bermudez, 21, is the executive
director for Hispanic Heritage Month for UF’s Hispanic Student Association,
which runs until Oct. 15. She is on a personal quest to find television shows and
other media that portray the variety in the Hispanic community. She thinks
mainstream media tends to lump all Hispanic lives into a single experience,
when in reality it’s much more varied.
“I’m an Afro-Latina and a lot
of times I feel like I’m not black enough for some people and not Latina enough
for other people,” Bermudez said. “Not all Latinas are Sofia Vergara or
Jennifer Lopez. Ultimately, I define what my Latina is and what it isn’t.”
Rosana Resende, a cultural
anthropologist and lecturer for UF’s Center for Latin American studies, said
she found it interesting that the study noted a smaller gap between how Hispanics
feel they are portrayed in the media as compared to African Americans. She credits
the growth of Spanish language media and believes ethnic coverage can be so
different from mainstream media that it can make the viewer feel as though they
are in a different city.
“When
people don’t see their lives reflected back at them in the media they consume,”
Resende said, “it can generate a lot of skepticism and mistrust.”
Resende
also believes that when minorities are covered in the media it’s usually
negative. When it’s positive coverage, she said it is undifferentiated,
one-dimensional and the attention is brought solely to a person’s race. Lumping
minorities together in this way, she said, can give them a “strength in
numbers” advantage, but ultimately does not allow for the greater diversity
between them.
“We
can’t just talk to Latinos about immigration issues and Cinco de Mayo,” Resende
said. “Minorities are a part of our neighborhoods and schools, and media should
make an effort to include them on discussions of all kinds of topics.”
Alleyne added that appearance
and visibility are important factors in how women are portrayed in the media.
Hair in particular, she said, is often the subject of discussion within the
black community. This conversation centers on whether women should wear their
hair straight or natural, and what implications that stylistic choice may have,
especially for women in media.
“I
decided to start wearing my hair naturally about a year ago,” Alleyne said, “so
that when little girls see me on TV they can say ‘Wow mom, she looks just like me, and I
can do what she does.'”
She said not seeing people
like her on TV never made her feel like she wasn’t able to accomplish what she
wanted. But watching professional, black women achieve goals similar to hers always
gave her a positive feeling she couldn’t explain.
Bermudez said she feels that the overwhelming messages young
Hispanic men and women receive about their lives from media are focused on
poverty, unplanned pregnancy and high dropout rates. She said that by including more varied and positive
Hispanic role models in the mainstream media, younger members of the community
will be inspired to achieve greater things, because they will then believe it’s
in their capacity to do so.
To help media entities better
represent minorities, Alleyne believes the change needs to start behind the
camera. She says newsrooms need to have greater diversity to allow for a wider
variety of thoughts and opinions. When she works on stories for journalism
classes and local TV stations, Alleyne makes a concerted effort to interview
people from different races and genders to more accurately reflect the diverse
population that makes up the community.
Resende says when African Americans
and Hispanics are highlighted in the media, they should not be expected to act
or speak on the behalf of their entire culture or ethnic group.
“Feeling like you have to do that is
a lot of pressure,” she said. “No one
asks a white person how they feel about something as a white person.”
Instead Resende wants to see the
media include as much context as possible and provide more opportunities for
minorities to contribute to mainstream media.
Alleyne says her organization hopes
to provide aspiring black journalists with resources to grow professionally and
personally. Group members also hold discussions on when to take into
consideration the ways in which race does and does not play into their careers.
“These can be awkward and difficult
conversations to have,” she said, “but it’s important that we start having
them.”
