Instructor: Dr. Katharina Rout
It is my goal as a parent to raise my children to be nonracist. In order to achieve this goal, I need to observe and assess everything my children will be exposed to, be it in the media, opinions of their relatives or the opinions and actions from certain groups within the Canadian society.
The racial statements and opinions from the media can be direct or subtle, all of which will affect my children. Rather than being blatantly racist, television programs hid their racism in innuendo or as comic relief. For example, the newest program on the Fox Network "The PJ's" portrays black people and minorities as poor, lazy, uneducated and criminally inclined. I have singled out this particular program because is it done in claymation, a form of animation normally reserved for children's programs. A few adults may be fooled by the claymation and allow their children to watch the "The PJ's." But, if the parents studied the content of the program, they would recognize the racial undertones that their children might perceive as truth. The program revolves around the superintendent of an apartment building in "the projects." This building is dilapidated and the majority of tenants are poor black families. The superintendent spends his time fixing broken sinks, toilets, heaters and windows, all of which are never fixed correctly. When the superintendent is not fixing the building, he is sitting in his easy chair watching The Wheel of Fortune. The message that my children would receive, if I allowed them to watch "The PJ's," is that black superintendents are lazy or too uneducated to fix anything properly. Also there is the perception that white people are not poor, because there are no white tenants. Racial insinuations in "The PJ's" are evidently portrayed in the scene where the apartment building is taken over by black gang members. The superintendent tries to call the police, but they have blocked any incoming phone calls from "the projects." To get noticed by the police the superintendent picks up his own television set and runs outside acting like he is a thief. This racial insinuation would teach my children that it is acceptable to perceive blacks as criminals, because people in authority condone this perception.
The attitudes of family members, in close contact with my children, can shape my children's future views of certain races. For instance, my children's great-aunt and uncle, I will call them Joe and Jane, have very strong views about the natives living on Vancouver Island. Joe and Jane, who are avid sport hunters, constantly complain that the natives are wasteful hunters and do not deserve the hunting rights that ...