The Black Disposition

Workplace discrimination has been a societal issue since the dawn of time. In America, so many factors play a role in this discussion, to the point where you could write endless stories on the topic. For Black Americans, the American workforce hasn't been forgiving. Although workplace discrimination is illegal, there are many studies that show it's still a huge problem. In 2019, the typical (median) black worker earned 24.4% less per hour than the typical white worker. This was an even larger wage gap than in 1979, when it was 16.4% (Wilson and Darity, 2022). That is the monetary side of things, but when you look at the treatment of marginalized groups, you'll find many cases of discrimination due to slurs or physical threats and all of the subtle nuances that pass. A good example would be stories that have broke about nooses being found on US construction sites in the last 5 years alone. It makes you begin to wonder, is American society falling into an unsavable environmen...

  Cinema has shaped the racial stereotypes we see in mass media since the beginning of the concept. Most people who have never seen or interacted with those of another race will tell you what they know by quoting or citing a specific film that features the race they may be talking about. More often than not, these things they "know" are usually just cinematic stereotypes that reflect all of America's natural prejudices. In recent years, there has been more focus on the portrayals of marginalized groups in media, as certain stereotypes can give the wrong perceptions to many. Hollywood has done a "stellar" job of providing our society with racist caricatures from the last century, where racism starts to feel like a box that needs to be ticked for a film to be greenlit. For Black people, Hollywood had their love for Blackface as a way to showcase stereotypes of Black Americans, making them look either low IQ or evil, with no in-between. Flash forward to today, and ...

The family unit has become a symbol in the United States that has become synonymous with the American Dream. For so long, many can't remember when that wasn't the case. Every time you see a picture of this "American Dream," you may see a pattern. When the idea of living that perfect life with the white picket fence in the middle to an upper-class neighborhood with a family of your own is always capitalized by a white family being behind that fence, how can anyone see that as attainable if you never a family that may look like yours? All of this essentially comes down to looking at the bigger picture. Why is the portrayal of Black families different from White families?  "According to a study by the non-profit civil rights advocacy group Color of Change and Family Story, an organization that advocates for families today, which looked at more than 800 local and national US news stories and opinion pieces between January 2015 and December 2016 (published online, in ...

 The debates made around America's cannabis laws have been used to fuel political fires for nearly a century now. With America's racist history on display for all to see, the role race has played in cannabis criminalization has been a deteriorating one. Despite Marijuana legalization, Black people are still 3.64 (almost 4) times more likely than their white counterparts to be arrested for marijuana despite the comparable usage rates. Some see these arrests as "racially targeted" and deem them an example of a tale of two countries. In 2021, Virginia legalized cannabis. Although overall arrests have dropped in the state since the initial legalization, Black adults still managed to account for nearly 60 percent of marijuana-related cases. Is there a war on Marijuana here in the States, or is it just a war on Black communities?  Sources:  https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/new-aclu-report-despite-marijuana-legalization-black-people-still-almost-four-times https://www.was...

      These two men, Melvin Harris III and Chris Watts were charged with murder in  August of 2018. Watts was charged with first-degree murder after killing his wife, who was pregnant, and their three and four-year-old daughters. Harris was charged with second-degree murder after fatally punching a man who followed his 16-year-old daughter into a public restroom while trying to enter her locked stall. Both are drastically different stories, with drastically different reporting headlines. Some of the biggest platforms for news in America reported Watts in ways that made it seem like what he did was "unimaginable," while the same can not be said for Harris. Using family portraits for white men who commit heinous acts against humanity has been an ongoing "joke" on social media for a while; it is indeed a reality. With Black Men, the platforms wait until the mugshots are posted and centered for them to make their news reports, even in the case of a father simply pro...