Question

Identify your earliest exposure to people who were racially or culturally different from you through movies, television shows, or music.

What was your age?

Who was the person and how was he or she different?

What impressions did you have about these people from these media? From a cultural pluralist’s perspective, do you think this experience was positive or negative for you?

Answer 1

Here are a few pointers that you can use to frame your answers to these questions-

1) What impact did the physical features of such a person/persons have on you? Did you find them to be very different from you physically? Did you find them to be the same? In case you found them physically different, did you like how they looked?

2) How did you assess the information they conveyed or the role they played? For example, if you encountered a music video in which they were performing music, what did you think about the music? Their attire? Similarly, in case you saw them in a movie, how did you perceive their role? Did this role lead to the formation of any general stereotype about that demographic of people?

3) What was the assessment that you made of the person as a whole? Did you like them or dislike them? Or were you indifferent to such value judgments?

4) How did this person make you feel about your place in the society? What kind of a relationship could you envisage having with this person in case both you and that person would have met or would have conversed?

With regard to cultural pluralism, the exposure could have been either positive or negative. That largely depends on one's own perspective, and the social environment of which one is a part. The exposure could have been a positive one in case you liked what you saw, and it inspired curiosity and/or respect in you. However, it could also have been a negative one in case you felt the other person to have advantages due to their culture or race that you did not have, or if you felt a sense of alienation and disapproval at what you saw. It could also have been quite likely that media representations of these people were stereotypical, and they also influenced your beliefs about the entire community as a whole. This is another point worth reflecting on.