Misunderstanding

Sometimes we have wrong images and ideas of people, because of stereotypes or prejudice from mass media. Most of us have some kind of it. For example, everybody thinks American people are big and fat. They always eat junk food and snacks. However those are not true. There are American people who are not big, not fat. We don't know who they are, until we really see them.
Nowadays a lot of black people are active in entrainment, business, and sports, for example baseball players, basketball players, singers and actors. Some of them are very popular and famous. They are also making money. For that reasons, outwardly it feels like white people treat them as normal and accept them. However this is not true. A few years ago in a Soccer game, several members of the audience sang a very discriminative chant for black people. Some of players couldn't keep playing. Even if known hooligans are prohibited entering the stadium, this kind of thing is happening sometimes. From my experience, I have traveled in 5 or 6 countries, and seen a lot of people who are from Europe and the US, but I have never seen black people at all. I think this means that there is still discrimination and they cannot get a good job like whites do.

Most people watch TV everyday. After September 11, lots of TV shows and movies were made which were against terrorism. I saw some of them and felt all Muslim people are like that. They go to mosque everyday and pray. They might attack even if they lose their lives. When I went to Malaysia, I saw a lot of women who wore turbans. This was not the first time to see people like that, but I felt something. Also at that time, Muslim people were in Ramadan, they don't eat anything until sunset. I heard about Ramadan before I went to Malaysia, but my image of Muslim people was made up by TV or magazines, so unconsciously I was afraid and avoiding them. It's hard to accept, because most Japanese are not religious. However when I saw them, my image was totally changed. They are just like us, except they are religious.

We should know that mass media might be able to control information, news and stories. Also we should be aware that they are not always right, and they are not always telling us the truth. We too easily believe everything the way it is shown on TV, even if it is not true. This might give us wrong images and ideas of people. We have see carefully what is going on in the world, what is happening, and what the truth is.