Have you ever looked at an advertisement, movie, or even a student committee and thought, where is someone who looks like me? Or have you ever heard someone say this, and you saw it as someone over-reacting? To many, the lack of representation of minorities, non-heterosexual, disabled, and other marginalized groups is not a topic that is of the utmost importance. However, lack of representation has extremely adverse effects on the community, especially youth like college students.
The reason why a lack of representation is not important to many is because it is heavily normalized and plays a large role in the oppression of marginalized groups for several reasons. According to a study by Indiana University, it was found that the representation of minorities in the media is very scarce, however, when racial minorities are placed in a role, they are often placed in a role that perpetuates racial stereotypes. This depiction of people who identify with racial minority groups is extremely harmful because it lowers self-esteem, and perpetuations racial discrimination and stereotypes as well. The study also found the self-esteem of all youth, except white boys, is lowered by the harmful lack of representation in media (Indiana University, 2012).
For example, the film Exodus: Gods and Kings, with famous actor Christian Bale, which was released in 2014, cause extreme controversy because of its lack of representation. Although the movie was based on a biblical story based in Egypt, Africa, majority of the characters were white. All too often, stories derived from people of color are white washed in the media, this is harmful because it erases the culture and contributions of people of color, while also taking away opportunities from actors and actresses of color who can illustrate the history accurately. In addition to the lack of representation of minorities, the lack of representation of disabled people and the LGBTQ community is equally harmful. Similarly, disabled people and the LGBTQ community are more than often placed in roles that perpetuate stereotypes related to their identity. Only 1% of television series include representation of disabled people (Sagaftra.org), while the LGBTQ community is just as unrepresented, and mostly represented in a negative light in the media (glad.org).
How does this have a large impact on college students? Firstly, we are the future of our nations. If we’re constantly consuming information that contains oppressive ideologies, stereotypes, and lack of representation; we tend to perpetuate those ideologies because it’s normalized and has been taught to us our entire lives. When the topic of lack of representation is brought up, victim blaming is common and some will say that minorities bring it upon themselves and do not try hard enough to be represented more accurately and more often. However, the lack of representation of marginalized groups is the fault of oppressive institutions and systematic oppression that has been normalized into our society, not the fault of the marginalized groups. A lack of representation creates a lack of opportunities and encourages marginalized youth to believe that they will never be qualified for various positions in the media, politics, student organizations, business and etc. simply because of the way the world views their identity or identities.
Lack of representation is deep, systematic, and normalized in our society. However, it is not too late for us to make a change. We can make changes by making efforts to change our own problematic ideologies. We need to take steps to understand each other and embrace different identities, races, and cultures, instead of using the identities of others to create a further divide in our communities. The change starts with us, especially college students because we are the future, if we change for the better, the world will change with us.
References:
http://www.sagaftra.org/study-reveals-continued-lack-characters-disabilities-television
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news-archive/22445.html
https://thedissolve.com/news/847-new-study-finds-minority-representation-lacking-in/