Ethnic Stereotyping, Alcohol Glorification in Media

As a Native American, I was especially interested in what the class had to say about typical stereotyping in media. Alcoholic, proud, lazy, one with nature, can't master English (language is broken), behind the times. My group brought up the government stipend the Native Americans get through the casinos. Even though I am 1/4 Cherokee and other tribes, I have been unable to obtain one dime of those stipends, because the federal government refuses to accept our tribe. So...not all Native Americans fit these qualifications.

In the assigned readings, I was appauled that "33% of high school seniors reported that they had consumed 5 or more drinks on one occasion in the previous two weeks." As a mother of a soon to be high school senior, that's particularily alarming. That's one in three students. If my son is not drinking, one of his friends is....who's driving? These are the students the alcohol ads are targeting. They make their money on the binge drinkers and alcoholics. Unfortunately, their ads pay too big a chunk of our entertainment dollars for them to be "black balled". It wouldn't hurt my feelings if they were put out of business.

The last 2 articles on teaching media literacy in the schools made me reevaluate this class. There is so much in media today: hidden messages, values, stereotypes, etc. that I feel my students should know. Actually, I think everyone should know it. I didn't know most of what we learned in class before last week. I can easily see how billions of dollars are leaving the consumers hands through unknown "duping" of the public through media sources. Personally, I would rather be a more informed consumer. I'm positive everyone else would feel the same way after learning what I have learned in these last 2 weeks. Thank you, Mary, for teaching this to us.