Over the past two weeks, we have been discussing racial tokenism in the media. TV shows, movies, and many other things we discussed display tokenism. Some other things that went unmentioned were books, comic strips, and video games. I can think of examples from all of the above that display tokenism. Another example that was mentioned was how colleges photoshop African American faces into brochures in order to make their school seem more diverse. I knew that these kinds of events took place at colleges. But at high schools, where students are not yet adults? Preposterous.
...Or so I thought. Last week, my mom went to a meeting for post-high school counselling. She brought home a binder that all the parents received. On the cover is some standard info: New Trier High School, class of 2012, etc. But the one thing that stands out is the picture. It is a clip art picture of students in graduation caps and gowns, holding diplomas. Unfortunately, I could not find the image online, and am not tech savvy enough to know how to scan it in. But the picture basically has four students: two African American, and two Caucasian. Now some may think that New Trier chose this picture because it was the first one that came up in Google images. But when I searched for this image, there were significantly more pictures with only Caucasian students. So New Trier must have combed through several pages of images in order to find this one. Quite obviously, the ratio of white to black students at New Trier is not one to one. So why did New Trier choose this images above all others? Were they, like the colleges trying to give a false sense of diversity, or was there some other reason?
Reed, Good to see you are extending class discussion in thoughtful ways. (You might see Mr. B about scanning etc). It'd be nice to push the analysis a little farther, though. Interview your post-hs counselor or jump from this topic to college ads?
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