Constantly referring to Obama as the first Black President. Constantly referring to Sotomayor as the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. And now, the Cambridge incident.
Do these, and other stories in the press, help or hurt race relations in this country? Would it improve if the media left race out of the stories? Instead of constantly referring to Obama as the first Black President, just calling him the 44th President.
June 25th, 2010 at 4:16 am
Race is part of life. I think the populace is more at fault on that then the press.
June 27th, 2010 at 12:29 am
The media is doing nothing but increasing the racial divide in our country.
June 28th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Race remains an issue in America. Jim Crow laws only ended in 1965 and *********** marriage was only legalized in 1968 across the nation. Remanants of this remain in society and I think it is better to confront it head on rather than cover it up and pretend things are all pretty.
June 28th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
I think of it as like… bringing up the death of a friend while at a bar. Very awkward…
July 2nd, 2010 at 2:13 am
I dont think reporting on a story helps or hurts, as long as its facts. I think its good to say look how far we’ve come we have our first black president. Race relations are hurt more when people such as Al Sharpton play the race card at the drop of a hat. It has become a knee jerk reaction for any situation involving a black person. The boy who cried wolf comes to mind.
We’ve made serious leaps and bounds in race relations in this county and i think its good to show that.
July 4th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Hurts… in my small community where people do not constantly harp on race (just look at people as people) we don’t have the constant problems as places where race is center stage. The PC crowd is just as bad as the KKK or Black Panthers in that they stir up trouble
July 5th, 2010 at 1:56 am
In the beginning referring to him as the first black president was extremely significant because it was historical. Now his race should have nothing to do with it. Same goes with Sotomayor – its historically significant.
I think what the media needs to control is the stories related to crime. Its seems to be more coverage of crime in urban areas than blue collar crimes. For every blue collar crime thats reported there are 5-6 crimes that they report on in urban areas.
I’d like to see them focus more on the good things that are happening in urban communities than all the negative they tend to foucs on.
I think that would change alot with race relations. Maybe America would stop belieiveng that most if not all crimes are committed by African Americans or Hispanics.
July 7th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
It hurts. If the subject of race is not necessary to a conversation, it should be omitted.
For example, if I tell you about a local story about my mayor dealing with our school board, do you really need to know the race of my mayor and the school board members? I don’t think so. Why separate people into little racial boxes if it isn’t necessary?
July 11th, 2010 at 2:24 am
The media has proven to be detrimental in just about every aspect in life. Of course they are going to report that Obama is black. If they didnt the news agency would probably be called ******. I do think that constantly mentioning the fact that Obama is half african is harmful toward race relations. If you are going to mention his race every third word you have to include that he is also Caucasian. It only makes sense.
July 11th, 2010 at 3:26 am
It’ll hurt things if it continues for long, but the reason it gets brought up now is that with so much inexcusable racism in our country’s history, we’re kind of saying “Well, look, it’s really good that we’re making baby steps past that.”
BUT…personality defines us, not skin color or anything else. We need to move past labels and things that separate us
July 12th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
i think the media is hurting race relations.