The theme of racial politics permeates through many aspects of American society. This context seeks to explore four different facets that are heavily impacted by racial politics, namely government politics, incarceration rates, disparities in education and finally through television representation. Racial politics also manifests itself in the every day lives of Americans through countless other channels because – though there have been many advances in equalizing rights – inequalities among races are still ever present in American society. We hope this context gives you insight as to how racial politics continues to play a large role in our world today.
A POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE ON RACE RELATIONS IN AMERICA:
Race relations have always had a significant impact on the politics and government of this country. [The Founders, for example, counted Black slaves as four-fifths of a person] In the landmark 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court most notably held that those of African descent are not citizens of the United States under the Constitution and are therefore not protected by it. Chief Justice Taney writing for the majority, noted that “[African Americans] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order; and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” The Supreme Court has advanced far from this most infamous decision. Less than a decade later, the Civil War Reconstruction and passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 aided in freeing the slaves and helped begin a new chapter of American race relations. [1]
In the century after Dred Scott the Supreme Court handed down a number of notable decisions that have brought greater racial equality to our country. Namely Brown vs. Board of Education which overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. The decisions in Brown ruled “separate but equal facilities [as] inherently unequal” making great strides towards equal access for a traditionally oppressed race. [2]
Other recent cases have made important strides toward leveling the playing field for underrepresented minorities. In Grutter v. Bollinger of 2003, the Supreme Court upheld a law school’s admissions program because, though the school considered race as a factor, it did so in a way that would still allow for a holistic evaluation of the applicant. This case created guidelines for affirmative action, what methods where constitutionally permissible and others which were seen as questionable. Affirmative action remains a contentious issue in this country but this Supreme Court case gave recognition of the benefits of racial diversity in the classroom, noting that these benefits “are not theoretical but real.” [3]
In other cases, like Hunt v. Cromartie of 1999, the Supreme Court allowed race-based considerations in redistricting. The Court held in the North Carolina case that as long as race was not the predominate factor in determining redistricting it was a permissible consideration.[4] These important Supreme Court decisions coupled with the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s have help to transform and improve race relations in this country. A key political victory was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which helped end discriminatory voting practices that had previously disenfranchised African American voters.
Despite these monumental changes over the past century African Americans still do not comprise a substantial portion of the federal legislature. African Americans are about 10% of the U.S. population, but only 115 have served in House. [5] Only six have served in the Senate, these include Senator Hiram Revels in 1870 from Mississippi, Senator Blanche K. Bruce in 1874 also from Mississippi, and Senator Edward Brooke in 1967 from Massachusetts. Senator Carol Moseley Braun was elected in 1992 from Illinois, as the first African American woman to serve in the Senate. And finally Barack Obama was elected in 2004 and was subsequently replaced by Roland W. Burris in 2008. [6] This is a miniscule representation of African Americans in the last 150 years of the Senate.
At the state level, there have only been three African American governors. [7] The first, Governor L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, was elected in 1990. [8] Second was Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts in 2006. [9] Lieutenant-Governor David Paterson became the third African American Governor in history replacing the scandal-ousted Eliot Spitzer in New York in 2008 in midterm. [10] At the local level there have been about 500 African American Mayors. [11] Carl Stokes was elected the Mayor of Cleveland Ohio in 1967 as the first African American to run a major U.S. city. [12]
In many of these elections the issue of race, and race-baiting was a hot-button subtext. One of the most notable instances was Deval Patrick’s run for Governor against Kerry Healy. Take a look at this ad; it is embedded in a news broadcast:
“Healey Targets Front-Runner Deval Patrick”
This ad became very contentious because of Patrick’s supposed defense of rapists, and one offender in particular Benjamin LaGuer, an African American. Reporters and commentators remarked that this ad had racial connotation because of its evocation of the white woman in a deserted parking lot, presumably about to be attacked, one can only suppose by a black man. The allusions are subtle but the media, both campaigns and voters paid attention to the racist message it was sending. [13]
Many believe a new era has dawned with the election of Barack Obama as the first African American president. Perhaps his tenure will open the way for other African Americans to hold top elected posts in government. The verdict is still out, the country has yet to see if his election will have an impact on race relations especially as they pertain to politics. Professor Dickinson made a poignant statement on his blog after Obama’s victory which resonates with many in terms of progress in race relations: “We, as Americans, should take pride in what happened last night. First, we affirmed an ideal that for far too long in this country has been more often talked about than acted upon: that the only qualifications one needs under the Constitution to become president are the ones related to age, citizenship and residency (subject to term limits). Last night we took a step closer to realizing that ideal. We aren’t all the way there, of course, but it was a huge symbolic victory.” [14]
It is important to recognize that race played a significant role in the 2008 elections. Headlines of major newspapers and magazines constantly played the race card. TIME magazine’s headline in February of 2001 read “Is Barack Obama Black Enough?” [15] In June of 2008 CNN ran a piece “Behind the Scenes: Is Barack Obama black or biracial?” [16] And although it was not widely reported there were many instances of harshly negative racial comments among McCain/Palin supporters. Here are some clips of McCain/Palin supporters as well as a video of CNN commentary on the issue of hate speech toward Obama.
[youtube 5Esocs9qPRY&feature=PlayList&p=70240B2AB5EF50AB&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=44]
[youtube vagD-4AH4Vc&feature=PlayList&p=6F0E7EDDE2524258&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=16]
[youtube hFp-ZQ1BWZc]
In a positive response, this ad, circulated in New York in various newspapers and online, implored voters to focus on the issues and not race. [17]
Exit polls from the 2008 election also confirm the significant impact of race on voting. The graph below shows 95% of African Americans nationally voted for Barack Obama.. John McCain also received 55% of the white vote compared to Barack Obama’s 43%. But to put these numbers in historical perspective, Clinton received 83% of the African American vote in 1992, and 84% in 1996; Gore received 90% in 2000; and Kerry received 88% of the vote in 2004. So while Obama’s increase is significant, it follows a general trend of Democratic voter loyalty among African Americans. Overall it shows that older, white, rural and male voters were not so ready for the change that Obama represented. How much of this was racially motivated will have to be analyzed in greater detail. [18]
In terms of Maryland voting patterns, the state had not seen such a high percentage of the support for the Democratic candidate since 1964 when Lyndon B. Johnson was running against Barry Goldwater, see the graph below. [19]
Presidential General Election Graph Comparison – Maryland
Maryland has an African American population of about 1.4 million which is 28% of the state’s total population which can be attributed to one of the reasons there was an increase in percentage of support for Obama since 95% of African Americans voted for him. [20]
The Wire also grapples with the issue of race and politics especially as seen through the election of Thomas Carcetti as Mayor of Baltimore. Carcertti’s election mirrors the real life story of Martin O’Malley who was elected Mayor of Baltimore in 1999 and then Governor in 2007. [21] O’Malley was the first white mayor since 1986. [22] This was an impressive victory considering well over half of the city of Baltimore is African American. [23] Although racial trends in voting are noteworthy, it is the issues that drive the elections. Ben Cardin an older white candidate running as a Democrat won the 2006 Senate race over Michael Steele an African American Republican, see the graph below for racial breakdown of the vote. Rather issues such as the war, the economy and healthcare were more significant than race.
RACIAL DISPARITY OF THOSE INCARCERATED
It takes only one episode for a viewer to understand the vital role that American racial politics plays in The Wire. While there are many different examples when the show addresses this theme, this context will focus on the scenes that take place in the prisons. While subtle, one of the most striking elements of these scenes is the disproportionate ratio of races that make up the prisons. In almost every prison scene, most notably Omar’s, the entire jail is made of up predominantly African American or Hispanic male inmates. This is not a coincidence, as the United States is known to have problems with their incarceration system. One of the most pressing issues, and that will be the focus of the context, is the uneven ratio that exists between the different races that are put in jail.
Many argue that a contributing factor to this problem stems from the simple fact that the United States has dramatically increased the amount of people they have incarcerated over the years. One statistic that illustrates this issue states that, “Over a one hundred year period, 1880 to 1980, the nation added a total of about 285,000 inmates to the prison systems. During just the ensuing twenty years, 1980 to 2000, the nation added about 1.1 million inmates. From 1850 through 2000, the nation’s prison system expanded about 206 times over, during a period of only about twelve-fold population growth (Ruth & Reitz, 2003, 283). Because of these large numbers, a discrepancy in any statistical category can cause a stir. One of these statistical categories, as listed above, has been race. Because this is a male dominated show, as well as males being the majority of those incarcerated, an overwhelming number of the statistics focus on men.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice midyears 2008 statistics, there were 2,310,984 prisoners. With such a large number and to make the statistic as even as possible due to the disproportionate ratio of each race in the United States, the Department of Justice broke each race down per 100,000 people. The findings state that, “At midyear 2008, there 4,777 black male inmates per 100,000 black males held in state and federal prison and local jails, compared to 1,760 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 727 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.” It is evident that these numbers are alarmingly lopsided.
These numbers have direct correlation to the show as statistics prove that Maryland, just like the rest of the nation, suffers from the same problem of having an uneven ratio of those incarcerated. When looking at Maryland, there are 35,601 people incarcerated. In this study, the numbers they calculated were based on the rate of incarceration per 100,000 residents. That being said, the studies found that there were 288 whites incarcerated compared to 1,579 African Americans.” (The Sentencing Project) With numbers like these, it is clear that the show was not fabricating the issue, rather just stating the facts.
The Wire, in addressing this issue, is looking for the viewer to take one step forward from the statistics listed above and to than look at the impact that going to jail has on an individual. Our society today is one that is built around rules and regulations. In addition to these rules, there are also expectations that are put on individuals by society. One of these expectations is that one should stay out of prison. In short, “going to prison is a turning point in which young crime-involved men acquire a new status involving diminished life chances and an attenuated form of citizenship” (Pettit & Western, 155). While being incarcerated effects all aspects of an individual’s life, one of the largest impacts it does have is that it takes away that person’s voting rights.
This issues of having your voting rights revoked played a subtle, yet crucial role in The Wire. The one direct reference of this issue comes when Cutty jogs by the voting booths and explains to a woman who is encouraging him to vote that he is unable to because of his prior convictions. While subtle, the implications are huge, reminding the viewer that there are many more just like Cutty who are forbidden from voting. This fact, combined with the incarceration statistics listed above, proves to be a large problem.
However, in researching the matter, in April of 2007, Maryland signed legislation re-enfranchising more than 50,000 Maryland residents who have completed their felon sentences. The “Voting Registration Protection Act” ended the state’s draconian lifetime voting ban and eliminated the three-year waiting period for certain people with past felony convictions. The magnitude of the issue has caused many other states, just like Maryland, to join the national trend of allowing those incarcerated to vote.
American racial politics is a central theme throughout The Wire. While there are scenes that make this apparent, there are also instances when it is not as clear, such as the jail scenes. When filming these scenes in jail, The Wire is looking to spread awareness to the viewer of the racial disparity that takes place in our incarceration system. As mentioned, it was no coincident that in each jail scene, the overwhelming majority of inmates were either African American or Hispanic. In observing this, the writers hope that the viewer will take one step forward and think about the implications that result from these statistics.
NATIONAL SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS:
The Racial composition of School Superintendents is of course relative to the changing national demographic and cultural shifts that have taken place in the last half-century. The recording of the racial demographic started in the early 1970’s by the American Association of School Administrators, and has continued to become more efficient and traceable. Most of the data that was found surrounded African American and White Superintendents – Latinos were, for the most part, were included in an encompassing Minority category.
Baltimore’s’ first African American Superintendent was Ronald Patterson, elected in 1971. By 1982, there were 57 African American Superintendents across the nation, which composed .7% nationally.
By 1988, African American Superintendents supervised over three million enrolled students nationwide, of which about two million were African American. In the net two years, there would be 142 African American Superintendents, which amounted to about 1.6%.
By 1997 nationwide, African Americans headed up 47% of the school systems in predominantly Urban areas.
The 2006 State of the Superintendency study found that the mean age of all superintendents was 54-55, and the amount of minority Superintendents, including Latinos African Americans reached 6% of total.
The National Alliance of Black School educators (NABSE) have kept demographic records for decades. This group represents the majority of African American supers and administrators in the US.
The NABSE has found that of 14,599 superintendents, 323 are African American, serving in 36 states around the country, though mostly concentrated in the South Eastern US. The states with the largest number of African American supers are as follows.
Mississipi (43)
Illinois (27)
Arkansas (25)
States with 3 or less AA Superintendents: Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, the Virgin Islands, and Washington.
20 States have between 3 and 17 AA superintendents – and 18 states have none.
The NABSE is a group comprised of 6,700 black superintendents, school administrators, and teachers; though it is the majority, there are more around the country.
Of the 248 districts controlled by black superintendents, 133 are located in urban systems.
The NABSE controls over three million students: of which 1.7 million are black, 789,227 are white, and 481,699 are Latino.
The Association of Latino Superintendents and Administrators (ALAS) is a group, like the NABSE, dedicated to uniting all Latino school educators. On their page, they claim that by 2025, 25% of the student age population will be Latino, and that 4 states: California, Texas, Florida, and New York have already reached this level. It was hard to find the composition of Latino Superintendents, but perhaps in the future, as the student composition shifts, so will that of school educators.
AMERICAN RACIAL POLITICS IN TELEVISION: A BRIEF HISTORY
Racial politics constitute an integral facet of television’s 60-some years as a mass medium in the United States. Amos ‘n’ Andy, Roots, and The Cosby Show are three key examples crucial for understanding the history of racial politics in American television. While these three programs are far from the only examples that exist, they nevertheless serve as landmark cases representative of certain racial politics during each program’s respective era. Together, they combine to chart the general evolution of American racial politics on television over the last 58 years.
THE EARLY YEARS: AMOS ‘N’ ANDY
CBS’ Amos ‘n’ Andy exemplifies racial politics during American television’s earliest years. Adapted from a popular radio serial and first broadcast on television in 1951, the all-black cast (a TV first) “enacted, with over-the-top gusto, the humorous exploits of the Uncle Tom-like Amos Jones and his gullible associate Andrew “Andy” Brown.” [1]
Watch a clip:
[youtube 3Md2Fr43ZAs]
As the above episode illustrates, early racial representation in television propagated a number of demeaning stereotypes – from the very start, the characters appear as bumbling idiots. Indeed, soon after Amos ‘n’ Andy began airing on CBS, the NAACP sued the network, charging that the show “tends to strengthen the conclusion among uninformed and prejudiced people that Negroes are inferior, lazy, dumb and dishonest. Every character in this one and only show with an all-Negro cast is either a clown or a crook, [and] millions of white Americans see this Amos N Andy picture and think the entire race is the same.” [2] Such demeaning stereotypes resulted from the fact that, while the show featured an all-black cast, the production team behind the program – the writers, producers, and other network executives – was overwhelmingly white. Such a dichotomy will plague television programs for decades to come. Finally, as the episode above illustrates, Amos and Andy seem to exist in a fundamentally separate world from whites, and so one could argue that the program enforces a mantra of segregation.
CBS ceased broadcasting Amos ‘n’ Andy in 1953, but the program nevertheless stands to illustrate the poor state of racial representation in television’s early years as a mass medium. As Herman Gray notes in his essay, “The Politics of Representation in Network Television,” “Black characters who populated the television world of the early 1950s were happy-go-lucky social incompetents who knew their place and whose antics served to amuse and comfort culturally sanctioned notions of whiteness, especially white superiority and paternalism.” [3] Not until Roots – some 25 years later – would television successfully and explicitly address such issues.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHANGE: ROOTS
In 1977 the miniseries Roots premiered on television and quickly became one of the most-watched shows in history with an estimated 140 million people tuning in for all or part of the 12-hour program. [4] For the first time, “audiences encountered Afro-American history in a remarkable context. Tracing the story of a black family over two and one-half centuries, the miniseries presented pictures of the destruction of normal, loving African families and the enslavement and/or murder of family members.” [5] In Roots, audiences came across a predominantly black cast that both resisted stereotypes and fore-grounded racial issues. No longer did television segregate its white and black worlds, as it did in Amos ‘n’ Andy. Rather, it confronted them in the most explicit way.
Darnell Hunt, author of Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America, notes, “There is little doubt that the success of Roots helped to recover and reposition television constructions and representations of African Americans and blackness from their historic labors on behalf of white racism and myths of white superiority.” [6] But while Roots succeeded in simultaneously confronting racial issues within the United States and avoiding black stereotypes, the miniseries was nevertheless still inextricably tied to issues of race. That is, “white” television shows could focus on any number of topics, but “black” programs were tethered to racial subjects. It would be another seven years before Bill Cosby’s brainchild finally broke free of such constraints.
THE HUXTABLES
In 1984 Bill Cosby created a sitcom centered on an upper-middle class black family in New York. Over the next eight years, The Cosby Show became one of the most popular programs in America. In addition to its unprecedented recognition, The Cosby Show is significant for propagating a fundamental shift in television’s racial politics. Previous shows that featured all-black casts typically presented or reinforced racial stereotypes, but “The Cosby Show… portray[ed] comedic black characters with dignity and humanity.” [7] Most notably, it presented a strong, nuclear family that could overcome any obstacle by working together and supporting one another. Also, the creative production team for The Cosby Show contained predominantly black talent, a shift from the traditionally white policy-makers.
A common criticism of The Cosby Show was that it tended to “whitewash” its characters and stories. [8] That is, it presents a family whose lives and themes are, for all intents and purposes, “white.” The implication here is that a show about a black family would not be about well-to-do characters in a close-knit family who speak with perfect diction. Bill Cosby himself responded to such allegations, reasoning, “To say that we’re acting white means that only white people can do this. It denies us being Americans. We go to college, we go to medical school. Now how then is this doctor [Cliff Huxtable] supposed to act?” [9] Cosby’s point, well taken, alludes to a crucial and groundbreaking aspect of the show, that it featured an all-black principle cast without being primarily concerned about race. That is, as Gray notes,
“In The Cosby Show, blackness, although an element of the show’s theme, character, and sensibility, was mediated and explicitly figured through home life, family, and middle-classness… The Huxtable family is universally appealing, then, largely because it is a middle-class family that happens to be black.” [10]
This is a critical point in the evolution of American television’s racial politics, and applies to The Wire as well. Race may feature prominently into the series’ syuzhet, but it is not primarily a show about race. Now it is possible to have a predominantly black show that is not tethered to dealing solely with racial issues, but rather can focus on any number of topics, such as reform, education, and indeed, the American Institution at large. Enter The Wire.
In many ways, The Wire appears to be a progression or continuation of sorts beyond what The Cosby Show established. Like The Cosby Show, the series features a predominantly black cast but does not focus specifically on issues of race. But while The Cosby Show depicted a specific upper-middle class black family, The Wire portrays a broad spectrum of black characters, ranging from some of the smartest (Stringer Bell) and wealthiest (Clay Davis), to the poorest (Dukie) and most outrageous (Omar), and everything in between. Furthermore, The Wire attributes any stereotypes that appear in the show (the absent father/dysfunctional black family is one particularly prevalent in Season Four) to socio-economic factors, not racial ones (just look at the parenting example McNulty sets in the first three seasons).
Obviously, many other programs factored into the evolution of racial politics in American television. These three specific instances simply serve as quintessential examples and helpful representations of the overall trend during the last 60 years or so. Indeed, without programs like Roots or The Cosby Show, it probably would not have been possible for The Wire to exist today.
WORKS CITED:
[1] 60 U.S. (How. 19) 393 (1857) Dred Scott v. Sandford
[2] 347 U.S. 483 (1954) Brown v. Board of Education
[3] 539 U.S. 306 (2003) Grutter v. Bollinger
[4] 526 U. S. 541 (1999) Hunt v. Cromartie
[5] Dickinson, Matthew. Representatives, Senators and Representation. Politics of U.S. Congress. Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont 26 February 2008.
[6] http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/Photo_Exhibit_African_American_Senators.htm
[7] http://www.cnbc.com/id/23593439
[8] http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/wilder.htm
[9] http://www.boston.com/news/local/politics/candidates/articles/2006/11/07/patrick_makes_history/
[10] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23566300/
[11] http://ncbm.org/
[12] http://www.stokescleveland.org/
[13] http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/10/19/new_healey_ad_again_links_patrick_laguer/
[14] http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/page/10/
[15] http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1584736,00.html
[16] http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/09/btsc.obama.race/
[17] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-obama-mccain-switch,0,590224.photo
[18] http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/exit-polls.html
[19] http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/comparegraphs.php?year=2008&fips=24&f=0&off=0&elect=0
[20] http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/000782.html
[21] http://www.gov.state.md.us/
[22] Context: Urban Politics
[23] http://www.mdp.state.md.us/msdc/census/cen2000/housing_patterns/baci9000t.pdf
Incarceration:
“Bureau of Justice Statistics.” U.S. Department of Justice. 19 Apr. 2009. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm#selected
“Maryland Governor Restores Voting Rights To 50,000.” The Sentencing Project. 19 Apr. 2009. http://www.sentencingproject.org/NewsDetails.aspx?NewsID=401
Pettit, Becky, and Bruce Western. “Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in U.S Incarceration.” American Sociology Review 69 (2004): 151-69.
The Sentencing Project. 19 Apr. 2009. http://www.sentencingproject.org/StatsByState.aspx
Superintendents:
“The Sage Handbook of African American Education.” – Linda C. Tillman.
www.NABSE.org
www.Thealas.net
“The State of the American School Superintendency: A Mid-Decade Study” – Thomas E. Glass and Louis A. Franceschini
Racial Politics in American Television:
[1] Hunt, Darnell M. Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); p. 11
[2] Coleman, Robin R. Means. African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000); p. 61
[3] Hunt, Darnell M. Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); p. 158
[4] MacDonald, J. Fred. Blacks and White TV: Afro-Americans in Television Since 1948 (Chicago, Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1983) p. 216
[5] Ibid; p. 215
[6] Hunt, Darnell M. Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); p. 160
[7] Jhally, Sut, and Lewis, Justin. Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream (Oxford: Westview Press, 1992); p. 2
[8] Fuller, Linda K. The Cosby Show: Audiences, Impact, and Implications (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992); p. 121
[9] Ibid.
[10] Hunt, Darnell M. Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); 162
Additional Sources:
- Coleman, Robin R. Means. Say It Loud: African American Audiences, Media, and Identity (New York: Routledge, 2002)
- Coleman, Robin R. Means. African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000)
- Entman, Robert M. and Rojecki, Andrew. The Black Image in the White Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)
- Jacobs, Ronald M. Race, Media, and the Crisis of Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
- Kevorkian, Martin. Color Monitors: The Black Face of Technology in America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006)
- Silk, Catherine, and Silk, John. Racism and anti-racism in American Popular Culture (New York: Manchester University Press, 1990)
- Snorgrass, J. William, and Woody, Gloria T. Blacks and Media (Tallahassee: Florida A&M University Press, 1985)
- Ward, Brian. Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle (Tallahassee: University Press of Florida, 2001)