Media, show diverse images of people!
“It would be more equitable to have more actors of color on the big screen.” And it “might actually change racist presumptions […] at large.”
Images have a huge influence on the way we see people that look different from yourself. And “our neural system does not easily differentiate between images we see on screen and images we see in ‘real life’.”
“We begin to imagine other people and how they appear, before we shake their hands, and well before any relationship might occur. We create mental models of others based on our past experiences, and these models influence any new encounters, whether we are conscious of them or not.
“It is precisely because our ability to see is largely learned and heavily influenced by media images, that we can also relearn how to see. A number of studies in cognitive sciences in recent years have shown how people can, for example, reduce racial biases through practices of seeing.”
In short, when media picture real representation, it will diminish racist behaviour in daily life!
Read all: How images change our race bias
