Representation Of Black Women In Media

I watch an obscene amount of reality television. My hulu watchlist is half competition shows and the other half Real Housewives. I watch an obscene amount of reality television, but my (main) issue with it is the way those shows portray black women. Take any show, Love and Hip-Hop, Bad Girls Club, Basketball Wives. All of those shows feature black women acting in a way that dehumanizes us. These shows package us in a way that fits every angry black woman stereotype that has existed since the dawn of time and media.

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The women on these shows are paid an obscene amount of money to make a mockery of the black woman. They shout and scream and pop their tongues in a way that degrades black women, yet we want to paint them as role models, as people we aspire to be when they paint themselves as over the top and ghetto. We are paying to watch our people be degraded by our own people, it’s a twisted Uncle Tom situation, and we’re playing into it, by watching an obscene amount of reality television.