University of Houston Law Center, virtual colloquium on race, racism, and American Media
In February 2022, Cara presented at the Colloquium on the topic of “Media’s Impact on Perceptions of Criminality in White Teacher of their Students of Color,” using a variety of frameworks and data sets to pose the problem that racist media portrayals impact white teacher’s attitudes toward their students of color.
Description
A 2018 report from the Center for American Progress notes the media’s role in the “dangerous racialization of crime.” They reported that media reporting on crime constructed biases against Black and Latino men, in particular, in a number of ways, including overreporting and the framing of stories. When this intersects with the fact that an overwhelming majority of public school teachers in the US are white, these attitudes of criminality can have devastating impacts on opportunities for students of color. I propose that critical media literacy must be a core part of pre-service education for teachers, in particular white teachers, as part of a larger anti-racist teacher education curriculum, and that we need to seriously consider the impact on classrooms when advocating for media justice in crime reporting.
Details
Services
Analysis, Presentation
Conference
University of Houston Law Center, Colloquium on Race, Racism and American Media
Role
Presenter
Date
February 2022