Theodora Johnson

Language Theory, Spring 2011

May 3, 2011


Johnson 1

The Ideology of Discourse and
Race in America
Im sure the saleslady didnt mean any harm as she followed me throughout the
womens department in the upscale store and graciously relieved me of the items I had
picked up to try on and maybe purchase. She took them to the cash register even though I
was not finished shopping. Id like to believe she could not have thought that I, a licensed
professional educator, was going to shoplift the three suits I wanted to try on before I
bought them. However, Im pretty sure she did think just that. I never saw her approach a
white person in that way; they shopped without being approached. Even I mean after all,
everybody knows, according to popular ideology, that Black people steal. Although people
of color go to school, get educated to rise above the poverty level, and attain multiple
degrees; even though they become high-level professionals such as doctors, lawyers,
analysts, and college professors, they still live under that ideology. I wanted to walk out
and leave those suits on the counter, but I needed a suit for a speaking engagement, and I
didnt want to drive all over town to get one. I swallowed my pride, tried on the suits,
bought one, and walked out. I never bought another suit from that store. I refuse to shop
where ideologies of this type are practiced. Where my actions are seen and judged through
someone elses eyes.
The essay The Whites of Their Eyes by Stuart Hall says three important things
need to be said about ideology:
First, ideologies do not consist of isolated and separate concepts, but in the
articulation of different elements into a distinctive set or chain of meanings.
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Language Theory, Spring 2011
May 3, 2011


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In liberal ideology, freedom is connected with individualism and the free
market; in socialist ideology, freedom is a collective condition, dependent
on, not counterposed to, equality of condition, as it is in liberal ideology.
Second, ideological statements are made by individuals: but ideologies are
not the product of individual consciousness or intention. Rather we
formulate our intention within ideology.
Third, ideologies work by constructing for their subjects (individual and
collective) positions of identification and knowledge which allow them to
utter ideological truths as if they were their authentic authors (Hall 396).

For that salesclerk to react the way she did in the previously discussed
shopping experience indicates that at some point she had either been taught or
trained by someones ideology to be extra watchful around Black customers
because of their high propensity to steal. I dont fault her; I fault the negative noise
that births these demeaning images of me as a woman of color. Her thoughts were
more than likely the product of what Hall says is the ideological construction of
black people as a problem population (Hall 397). I am not the only person of
color or ethnic origin who has fallen victim to the mindsets this ideology; this
ideology and others like it affect people of color from the crack house to the White
House.
According to Hall, ideologies work by the transformation of discourses and
the transformation of subjects for action. How we see ourselves and our social
relations matters, because it enters into and informs our actions and practices.
Ideologies are therefore a site of a distinct type of social struggle. Ideology is a
practiceit is generated, produced and reproduced in specific settings (sites)
which produce social meanings and distribute them throughout society, like the
media (Hall 397). In the matter with the salesclerk, this information makes
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perfect sense. In many cases I find myself looking at myself through the lenses of
the other race. I catch myself being ever so careful when Im in stores to make sure
I dont do anything to send out an alarm or cause a security officer to ask me to
empty my pockets or ask me to surrender my purse for inspection; in fact, I make
sure I dont use any of my big purses when I go shopping because they scream
SUSPECT! to security monitors and salesclerks. My actions are dictated by how I
think others are going to see them. Not only do I see myself allowing outside lenses
to dictate my behavior during my shopping experiences, I allow those lenses to
dictate my actions at work. There is always the thought that I have to go above and
beyond the standard to feel that Im doing a good job. Its a stressful and sad
existence.
I wonder how many of the salesclerks thoughts may have been generated by
images she had been exposed to via the media. According to Hall, the images that
permeate the thoughts and actions of the majority race are produced by the media.
Institutions like the media are peculiarly central to the matter since they
are, by definition, part of the dominant means of ideological production. The media
construct for us a definition of what race is...what the problem of race is
understood to be. The media are not only a powerful source of ideas about race;
they are also one place where these ideas are articulated, worked on, transformed
and elaborated (Hall). For example, in most television shows, Black males are
portrayed as gang bangers, rapists, rap artists, pimps, or baby daddies. If they are
not portrayed as criminals, then they are portrayed as athletes, as flaming gay men
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or buffoons like Mr. Brown from the sitcom Meet the Browns, a popular Tyler
Perry production. Rarely are they shown as doctors, lawyers, professors, positive
father figures, or professionals like legitimate businessmen, stock brokers, or
college professionals. It seems the media has a hands-off approach to show a black
man in an intellectual role. Some of these roles are products of inferential racism;
others are products of overt racism. The objective of such programming is to
impregnate the programs with unconscious racism because they are all predicated
on the unstated and unrecognized assumption that the blacks are the source of the
problem (Hall).
A primary example of this form of inferential racism in programming can be seen on any of
the major television networks as well as cable channels. Its hard to surf channels without
finding at least two shows that feature a young black male as a perp in a crime committed.
Its almost impossible to find a movie that features a black male who is honestly employed.
I rarely see shows that make a push for education. To further this argument, it is just as
hard to see a black female character that is not depicted as a mammy, a whore/baby
mamma on welfare, or Sapphire character. There are a few women who are shown as
professionalsmore so than a black malebut the majority are the traditional
stereotypes.
An example of overt racism is the way the current President of the United States has
been treated by the media. During the last 20 years, the tone of political discourse in this
country began to change; in the last three years, the political tone has deteriorated. The
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words became more hateful, more coded, and more acidic. People like Rush Limbaugh, Don
Imus, Newt Gringich, and the Fox News Network spared no negativity when talking about
Obama.
Although in the past, Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush took hits from
the media, President Obama has taken the lions share of shots. Right-wing
conservatives have worked tirelessly to discredit him. Granted, he is not perfect,
but he doesnt deserve the high level of disrespect he is being shown. Most people
feel that if he was any race but Black, he would not be subjected to the ridicule he is
beset with. The white eye cannot see him as an intellectual being because that
would remove him from the stereotypical ideology. The white eye is always
outside the frame but seeing and positioning everything within it (Hall). The frame
Hall is talking about is the one historically constructed and formed in the age of
Imperialism when stereotypes were grouped around the poles of superior and
inferior natural species. In this portion of his essay, Hall talks about the base
images of the grammar of race. Those images are what he calls the familiar slave
figure, the devoted Mammy, the faithful field hand, and the noble, yet cunning
native. Obama is outside the frame of these base images of the grammar of race.
He does not fit the slave figure since he is not a descendant of African slaves in
America; he doesnt fit the native prescription. His father was Kenyan, but Obama is
a mulattonot full African; he doesnt fit the clown or entertainer role because
he is a Harvard Law School graduate who articulates well and conducts himself in a
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dignified manner. Because he cant be placed in any of the ideological molds, the
media has had to discredit him in subtle ways.
One source of the discrediting attempts is the book Gangsta Government: Barack Obama
and the New Washington Thugocracy written by David Freddoso. The first thing I took
issue with was the ideology in the title. Its no matter that President Obama has achieved
the highest office in America; this Black man still cannot outrun the concept of Black men
being gangstas and thugs. A paragraph from the jacket reads Gangster Government is a
devastating and revealing look at the momentous first two years of the Obama
administration and its subversion of our Constitution and laws. It casts a hard look at a
president whose training on Chicagos political playground shines through every bent law
and every broken promise. Now this is a book written by a conservative, so the slant is not
expected to be in the Presidents favor, but I wonder how Freddoso feels about the gangsta
president now that Bin Laden has been taken out.
Other examples of the hate discourse can be seen on tee shirts. Some examples are
as follows:
A Village in Kenya Is Missing Its Idiot
One Big Ass Mistake America
Im the God-Fearing, Gun-Toting, Flag-Waving Conservative You
Were Warned About
Obnoxious Boring Arrogant Machiavellian Asshole.
(see attachment)

Now, I know it is nothing new to bash politicians, but I cant help but wonder how much of
the discourse is racially driven more so than an honest critique of the Presidents
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Language Theory, Spring 2011
May 3, 2011


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leadership. The majority of the campaign discourse in 2010 was promises from politicians
to go to Washington to stop Obama. Its disheartening to hear and see the country go to
the depths it has to bring a man to his knees.
Whats funny is that none of these groups will admit that any of their actions are
race driven. Teun Van Dijk writes the official norm, even on the right, is that we are all
against racism and the overall message is, therefore, that serious accusations of racism are
a figment of the imaginationwhereas discrimination gets rather wide attention in the
press, racism does not (Van Dijk 511). This quote says to me that neither the media
producers nor the politicians or the salesclerk at the store will admit that they are racist.
Thats the new dirty word in society. Despite these denials, the messages are blatantly
clear. Its just that they get so whitewashed in coded words, actions, and euphemisms that
they dont sound racist. The salesclerk may have just been trying to be courteous by
relieving me of my selections. Trumps demand for Presidents birth certificate may have
just been a matter of national security. The messages of the Tea Party politicians may have
been simply to offer their constituents a formulated peace of mind by letting them feel that
they were going to Washington to save them. The TV show producers may just be keeping
it real for their audiences by depicting ethnic groups in the base image frames so as to
not take any of their ethnicity from them. The world will never know as long as the
messages are veiled. Listeners can only depend on their innate discernment to weed
through the discourse to find the truth in the messages.
Theodora Johnson
Language Theory, Spring 2011
May 3, 2011


Johnson 8

My hope is that one day all people of color will be free from the whites of their eyes
and free from the racially slanted speech about them. In the words of Louis Armstrong,
What A Wonderful World it could be.
Theodora Johnson
Language Theory, Spring 2011
May 3, 2011


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Bibliography

Bourdieu, Pierre. ""Language and Symbolic Power"." Jaworski, Adam and Nikolas Coupland. The
Discourse Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006. 480-490.

Greene, Linda S. ""Racial discourse, hate speech, and political correctness". ." 25 April 2011.
National Forum. FindArticles.com. 25 April 2011
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3651/is_199504/ai_n8713482/ >.

Hall, Stuart. ""In the Whites of Their Eyes"." Jawarski, Adam and Nikolas Coupland. The Discourse
Reader. New Year: Routledge, 2006. 396-406.

Van Dijk, Teun A. ""Discourse and the Denial of Racism." Jaworski, Adam and Nikolas Coupland. The
Discourse Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006. 506-520.