Robert Le Professor Saratsiotis English 1B Section 64 February 25, 2014 The Cultural Myth: The Melting Pot The

myth of the melting pot is the belief that America is a society in which all races are created equal and that racism is now a socially unacceptable in our society. Even though the reality is that racism is very prevalent in America. Most Americans have internalized racism, stereotypes, and hierarchy from a young age. We are taught that white culture is always superior compared to all other culture and any differences in this belief will result in discrimination and harassment. Even when we conform to the white ideal, people of color will always have the shorter end of the stick, consistently faced with obstacles in the same race with people of no color because of a system that is set up to support white people. In media, people of color are consistently portrayed as their frame or stereotype (ex. Black people are criminals/thugs, Asians dont understand/lost/annoying/extremely smart, Latinos are ghetto/lower class workers) while white people are seen as normal/excellent citizens contributing to society in order to reinforce the idea of racial superiority. In entertainment, it severely lacks the representation of POC, whether they are musicians, actors, and etc even though they as a collective make up a majority of this countrys population. We have stars such as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, and numerous amount of white celebrities who occupy a range of entertainment. When you compare them to the POC in entertainment, people such as Samuel L. Jackson, Nicki Minaj, and Will Smith, are only famous for mainly their crude language, unusual sense of fashion, or comedy, roles in which they have to fit these frames in

order to make the cut of being famous. Currently in America none of us are equal, people of color are under and misrepresent in culture, politics, and media. The consequences result in children of color believing that they are rare and their culture is a burden on them, which creates a generation in which people are white-washing in order to conform with their society, the melting pot becomes a tasteless stew. In order to overcome this myth, the first step is the representation in media and entertainment for POCs, media is a huge influence over Americas population. Stereotypes needs to be cut, to lose the mentality of certain races adhere to certain activities isnt necessarily true. Lastly, we could all do better by acknowledging the differences (not the I dont see you as this) with one another and see others as equal beings. If we spent less time trying to make people conform to ideals, they could learn to love who they are and focus on moving forward.