The Invisible Discriminator: A picture provokes a thousand words.

The power of representation has been discussed greatly throughout the year. Emotional segregation and symbolic violence are two topics Suzanne brought up that I found related substantially to current events in our society.

9/11 caused an influx in distinct mistreatment of minorities in mainstream media after it became naturalised for the blame to be shifted from the act of one group, to that of a race.

Mainstream media has the power over how they cover a story and what way they choose to frame an event. In an ideal world the journalistic standards they preach about would be upheld. However, objectivity and trustworthiness, the founding pillars of journalistic practice, seem sadly lacking in most of modern society’s news.

Fox News and CNN are obvious culprits of racial bias and symbolic violence as they use language, which pinpoints specific racial groups as being naturally prone to violent and criminal behaviour. The example that is the pinnacle of this behaviour, and one that we have seen frequently in lectures, is the Hurricane Katrina coverage of people scavenging for food.

This is a widely used image and the reason why I chose to use it again is because its significance will never cease to be powerful. Simple micro-aggressions such as one word changed in the same story can produce such damaging implications for anyone involved. There is a continued use of symbolic violence in global media coverage of many events and not only does it highlight the horrific bias actions of those in charge but also brings to light the exnomination and emotional segregation that emerges as a result.

To assure you these types of things are not distant, there was an Australian advert that I saw online recently about the damaging effects that emotional segregation can have on people. A commentator of Aboriginal descent himself acts as the personification of ‘the invisible discriminator,’ questioning others actions towards Indigenous people. They imply the process becomes naturalised as these prejudices of other races are so embedded into our subconscious, we don’t even realise ourselves doing it. The advert featured an aboriginal man sitting on a bus, who moved his bag for another passenger to sit down. When she sees he is Aboriginal, she turns around and refuses to sit on the seat the man has offered to her. The gut wrenching emotional reaction that this advert’s moral message provoked is the awareness we need on a global scale. We are manipulated so strongly by racist discourses that we do not even realise they are happening around us all the time. Colonialism may have ended but the postcolonial repercussions and severely damaging effects of this will live on until those enforcing them confront them.

If I have learnt anything from this course, it would be the power of self-reflexivity, knowledge and ignorance. The longer we continue to pretend that we live in a Neo-liberal society, the longer these inequalities will continue without question. The longer we ignore responsibility for change, the further away from it we will travel. By being given the knowledge to make a difference, no matter how small or large, it becomes our responsibility to educate others and utilise this in everyday life. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”