Enlightened Racism

by Jhally, Sut

• ISBN13: 9780813314198
• ISBN10: 0813314194
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-06-10
• Publisher: Westview Pr

Summary

The Cosby Showneeds little introduction to most people familiar with American popular culture. It is a show with immense and universal appeal. Even so, most debates about the significance of the program have failed to take into account one of the more important elements of its successits viewers. Through a major study of the audiences ofThe Cosby Show,the authors treat two issues of great social and political importancehow television, America's most widespread cultural form, influences the way we think, and how our society in the postCivil Rights era thinks about race, our most widespread cultural problem.This book offers a radical challenge to the conventional wisdom concerning racial stereotyping in the United States and demonstrates how apparently progressive programs likeThe Cosby Show,despite good intentions, actually help to construct "enlightened" forms of racism. The authors argue that, in the postCivil Rights era, a new structure of racial beliefs, based on subtle contradictions between attitudes toward race and class, has brought in its wake this new form of racial thought that seems on the surface to exhibit a new tolerance. However, professors Jhally and Lewis find that because Americans cannot think clearly about class, they cannot, after all, think clearly about race.This groundbreaking book is rooted in an empirical analysis of the reactions toThe Cosby Showof a range of ordinary Americans, both black and white. Professors Jhally and Lewis discussed with the different audiences their attitudes toward the program and more generally their understanding and perceptions of issues of race and social class.Enlightened Racismis a major intervention into the public debate about race and perceptions of racea debate, in the 1990s, at the heart of American political and public life. This book is indispensable to understanding that debate.

Author Biography

Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis are associate professors in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Both have written extensively on media and popular culture. Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis are associate professors in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Both have written extensively on media and popular culture.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	xiii	(2)
Preface	xv	(2)
Acknowledgments	xvii
1 Introducing The Cosby Show	1	(14)
Cosby: The Case For	3	(3)
Cosby: The Case Against	6	(2)
Asking the Audience	8	(4)
Synopsis of The Cosby Show Episode Shown to Respondents	12	(3)
2 Television and Reality: How Real Is The Cosby Show?	15	(20)
Talking About Reality	17	(6)
The Absence and Presence of Class	23	(4)
Cosby Contradictions	27	(3)
The World According to Cosby	30	(5)
3 The Success of Cosby	35	(22)
White Viewers and Popularity: The Same and Different	36	(2)
"They're Things That Happen Day by Day"	38	(3)
"It Has That Kind of Airbrushed Quality About It"	41	(2)
"It's Always Family Matters"	43	(3)
"The Cosby Show's Black, and That Fits"	46	(2)
Black Viewers and Popularity: "Thank You, Dr. Cosby, for Giving Us Back Ourselves"	48	(2)
"When I Look at Them, I Look at Us"	50	(3)
"What Kind of Question Is That for Black Folk?"	53	(3)
Looking on the Bright Side	56	(1)
4 Black Experience: Images, Illusions, and Social Class	57	(14)
Black Images: The Case of the Disappearing Black Working Class	58	(3)
Black Reality: The Permanent Underclass and Increasing Poverty	61	(3)
The Race-Class Nexus	64	(4)
Class and Social Mobility	68	(3)
5 Class and the Myth of the American Dream	71	(22)
Misrepresentations and Misconceptions	71	(1)
Television and the "American Dream"	72	(3)
Class Consciousness: The View from Above	75	(3)
Class Consciousness: The View from Below	78	(3)
The Displacement of Class onto Race	81	(2)
Stereotyping: The Limits of Conventional Thinking	83	(3)
The Fictional Creation of a Racially Just Society	86	(7)
6 White Responses: The Emergence of "Enlightened" Racism	93	(20)
The Insidious Return of Racism	93	(2)
Definitions of Black: Color Versus Culture	95	(3)
The Black and White Cosby Show	98	(3)
Now You See It, Now You Don't	101	(7)
Biology Versus Culture	108	(1)
The Consequences of Classlessness	109	(4)
7 Black Responses: The Hollow Images of Success	113	(18)
The Bad News	113	(4)
Race and Class in Black Situation Comedies	117	(4)
Positive Images and the Search for Prosperity	121	(3)
The Battle for Respect	124	(3)
Clinging to the American Dream	127	(4)
8 Conclusion: Unpopular Messages in an Age of Popularity	131	(14)
Affirming Inaction in White Viewers	135	(3)
Rethinking Stereotypes	138	(1)
Moving Beyond the American Dream	139	(6)
References	145	(2)
About the Book and Authors	147	(2)
Index	149