Week 5 - Barker, Ch. 9 (Ethnicity, etc.)

Racialization is the idea that race is a social rather than biological construction. Ethnicity is how groups identify what they are and are not. National identity is another form of identification gained through media, pop culture, etc. Diaspora is when ethnic groups become spread out but still connected through a network. Hybridization is the combination of different "cultural mixing." Stereotyping "reduces and essentializes.. difference." Racism is the "patterns of cultural respresentation" within society. Great discussion of how blacks are represented in TV - everything from the Huxtables to black news anchors and their effects on our racial thinking. Cultural studies needs to diagnose why we struggle to live with difference.