In society today, one cannot turn on the news without seeing some sort of racial prejudice. Between inaccurate character portrayals of victims, stereotypical descriptions of minorities, and racial prejudice faced on a daily basis, it’s a bit easier to understand why people would get fed up with this sort of treatment and turn to violence, like with Ferguson. How the majority of the media treated the situation in Ferguson can teach a lot about how discrimination is still prevalent today.

The majority of  media doesn’t exactly have a clean reputation for painting people in positive ways, but it seems that when minorities are involved, things go south rather quickly, as in the shooting of Michael Brown. Not much was known about the character of Brown following the shooting, but that didn’t stop some media outlets jumping to racist conclusions about Brown. They assumed that he was killed due to an altercation with a police officer, without knowing all of the details of the case. This further contributed to the discrimination against black people, not only within the Ferguson community, but across the nation as well. The majority of the media focused on the so-called violent riots more than the efforts some people made to help their community, such as setting up food drives or clean-up crews, which led to more stereotyping of black people as violent and unruly.

Not only do black people face this type of treatment by the majority of media, but other minority groups do as well. All too often, the news will portray any non-white Muslim in the media as having terrorist affiliations, adding to the discrimination against them for no reason other than their religion. On the reverse side, a white person that has done the same thing will either be portrayed as mentally ill or not be talked about at all. This sort of injustice leads many people to feel like their voice is no longer heard by society.

The treatment of black people and other minorities by the majority of the media  contributes to the continued destruction of character, stereotyping, and other racial prejudices further demonstrates how far society hasn’t come from the days of the Civil Rights Movement. How the media should treat these people is just that: as people.