Topics in American Culture

RiA Project

December 21, 2018

There are many issues in the community. Many people are getting picked on for being different. Being different means many things, for example, someone’s skin color, their hair color, the language they speak, and other things that make them different. Choosing to be friends with someone because of their skin color is called racist. Being racist, or racism, is thinking one person’s skin color is better than another color.

Some of your favorite TV shows are like this. Spongebob Squarepants lives in a nice, big home. His best friend, Patrick, lives in a small rock. Spongebob goes to school and works. Patrick is not really smart compared to Spongebob.

This shows that Patrick is not as economically stable as Spongebob. He was not able to afford a good education which landed him living in a poor conditioned house with no real furniture.

Because Spongebob went to school and has a stable job, he was able to live in a nice house. Patrick, however, seems to not have been educationally successful, leading to him living in a poor conditioned house.

Spongebob has a job, he goes to school, and he lives in a nice house. Spongebob has blue eyes. For a long time, young kids were taught that having white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes was the beauty standard.

Although it is never said that is the reason, by watching this show for long periods of time, it leaves the thought on young kids. This is called implicit racism. Implicit means to understand something without it being obvious.

Another TV show is South Park. South Park is a show of four 4th graders, who curse, and experience odd things. The main character's names are: Eric Cartman, Kenny McCormick, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, and Token Black.

Out of all the characters, Token is one of the only non-white people. It is quite ironic (funny) that Token's last name is black because he is one of the only person who is Black.

The character Token has an important name meaning, “tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or sexual equality within a workforce” (Wiki).

This is important to know because the show may have only included Token Black as a character to say they were not being racist and leaving out any people of color. "If there’s only one candidate from an underrepresented minority within a group, that could be an instance of tokenism" (Vanderbilt). In this case, Token is the token character.

South Park even made fun of people who were hung. In this case, every person is white except the one who was hanged. The show has a lot of racism and innuendos (suggestive remarks).

Another common television show is Family Guy. Family Guy is a show based on the main character, Peter, and his experiences, as well as his family's. The show is known for having some dark humor involved.