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Canadian Media: Non-racist?
Austera
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey H/A,
For my communications course, I got signed up for this debate where I have to support the non-existence of racism shown in Canadian media. I'd like to be confident about it, but personally I haven't been able to find much diversity anywhere lately, except in crime news (which is just a set-up for losing the debate). All I have so far is Vancouver's channel M. So, if you guys have any sources that might help me support the multiculturalism of our home and native land, please link away!
Examples can be:
ads, commercials, TV
posters
music, movies
news
etc etc.
Much appreciated.
For my communications course, I got signed up for this debate where I have to support the non-existence of racism shown in Canadian media. I'd like to be confident about it, but personally I haven't been able to find much diversity anywhere lately, except in crime news (which is just a set-up for losing the debate). All I have so far is Vancouver's channel M. So, if you guys have any sources that might help me support the multiculturalism of our home and native land, please link away!
Examples can be:
ads, commercials, TV
posters
music, movies
news
etc etc.
Much appreciated.
Austera on
0
Posts
How do you prove something doesn't exist?
Your opponent is Bush. They just need to find a few, isolated incidents that can be used to paint the whole.
The best you can do is...
-Corner Gas. Lorne Cardinal's character is in no way a native stereotype.
-Little Mosque On The Prarie. Though I wouldn't risk it, as it would be just as easy for your opponent to turn this one against you.
-North of 60, perhaps? It was a prime-time drama that explored life on a reserve.
-I have absolutely no doubt there will be a laundry list of native-produced films or TV shows. We have the Aboriginal People's Television Network, don't we?
-since Obama appeared on the world stage (am I a racist for noticing this?) black men are much more commonly depicted as The Boss in TV commercials. This is, of course, stereotyping - any degree of which still isn't cool - but it's better than seeing 100% white guys in that position.
An idea may be to address how much better things are now than they have been in the past. Watch any black & white movie featuring non-whites on Turner Classic Movies and you'll be dumbfounded by the depiction of minorities.
You could also play clips of the two gold-tooth-sportin' jive-talkin' "we ain't much for readin'" robots from Transformers 2 and rally with the ancient battle cry of Canadian identity:
"At least we're not Americans!"
*
In terms of news, I'm afraid only one non-white anchor comes to mind: Ian Hanomansig. Maybe we are racist.
Y'know what? Check that. We are still racist.
Edit: oh, and I think there's a show on Teletoon that's made by a Canadian production company called 6teen. It's got a sarcastic Asian girl and a neurotic black kid. They're opposite-racists. Which is still kinda' racist - but it's an example of media produced with the conceit of not reinforcing negative stereotypes.
common counterpoints would be:
*but that is 10 years ago! We are talking about contemporary media
*you show how the black guy does something dumb, but what about this white guy doing something dumb, and this other white guy also doing something dumb. Black and white are treated equally.
I'd watch out with countering with "but that show is imported", because if it is shown on Canadian TV it means someone in the media made the decision that the racism portrayed in that show wasn't really all that bad (prime examples: Borat, Team America, Mohammed the Dead Terrorist).
I think that whoever made you pick this role hasn't really considered the implications: it's a lot easier to go "THATS RACIST!" as that immediately paints you as a racist, while you will have to do everything in your power to convince people that that poor coloured man is not treated unfairly.
If the examples shown aren't very blatant it might be worthwhile to go with the Avenue Q approach...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbud8rLejLM&feature=related
lyrics
If you're looking for multiculturalism, just look at the news team of your local news stations. If you don't find it there, check out CityTV in Toronto.
News organizations will cater their news teams to their demographic. So, if there are a lot of East Indians who watch their station, they will hire East Indian anchors and/or reporters because they want their viewers to feel represented.
As for the rest, I really don't know much about Canadian TV.
I'll still say you're in for a struggle, though, since proving a negative is rather difficult.
Face Twit Rav Gram
Would your argument still be considered a success if you proved that everybody is racist (as above) and that Canada is merely one of the least racist?
I would be willing to bet a major element of their argument will be based around the news, and they'll probably pull out a statistic along the lines of "75% of crimes reported in media are committed by a minority!" or something. Your job is to find a statistic that says that minorities commit more crimes and frame it as a racial prejudice of society in general, forcing minorities into situations where crime is a favourable option, rather than the media. If you can't find one of those and they come up with "75% of crimes reported in the media are committed by a minority and 75% of crimes are committed by white people" your best bet is to claim that they can only report on the crimes that they are told about, and that perhaps people in society tend to report crimes by committed by minorities to news outlets more frequently.
For movies and tv this works as well - if you can find a stat showing more crimes are committed by minorities then you can claim that the reason more negative portrayals exist is a tendency for producers to want to make their productions realistic, and that statistically speaking that means most crime portrayals should be of minorities. If you can't find a stat that says that blame their beliefs of minorities on the news, and point out again that this is the fault of society at large and that it does not necessarily show racism on behalf of the media.
Basically, your argument should go something like this -
Pro-diversity sources
Weaknesses and flaws in their arguments
a nice conclusion reiterating everything
If they make their arguments first you may want to flip weaknesses and diversity sources, but I wouldn't. While you're going through pro-diversity sources look for more flaws, and if you have already said flaws in their arguments and then left and come back to the topic your argument will look unorganized which will weaken its effectiveness.
Note: I'm not saying Minorities do commit more crimes or anything, this is just the stats I would keep a lookout for because I'm sure even if its not true you can probably find a source that claims it is.
What you will have to accept is that everyone will think you are racist forever after this
Especially if you call Native Americans "aboriginies."
fixed, you horrible fucking racist :x
Honestly, you're being set up to be the fall guy in my opinion. You're trying to prove a negative and you're trying to claim that the media is not racist. One racist article or viewpoint - and they're out there - and you're a horrible racist yourself for defending them.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
You can't prove that racism does not exist in Canadian media, because it most certainly does. There's racism out there, somewhere, in some radio, television, or print outlets. What you can prove is that there are media outlets in Canada that exercise diversity whenever possible.