Richard Dyer Essay

In this essay, Richard Dyer takes a look into the ways race is handled by the media. For the most part, race is a term that’s only applied to non-white people. White people are not racially seen. The media tends to see whites as the human norm, which is far from the truth when you look at the numbers. This is a product of Western media, which penetrates its way into books, films, museums, television, etc. As Dyer writes, “At the level of racial representation… whites are not of a certain race; they’re just the human race.” Dyer proposes that we need to look at whiteness as a race. We need to make it strange. Once we remove the normality associated with it, we can start attacking racism and prejudice.
Racial Imagery is central to the organization of the modern world. Judgments are made on people’s worth and capacities, what they look like, where they are from- i.e. racial judgments are made. World is full of barriers of prejudices. Race in itself refers to some insignificant geographical or physical difference between people; it is really just the “imagery” of race that is in place. When studying race it seems that there is an absence in the study of images of white people, yet race is not only applicable to non-white people, nor is their imagery the only racial imagery. As long as race is something only applied to non-white people, as long as white
In western representation (books, films, advertising, press) whites are overwhelmingly and disproportionately predominant, have the central and elaborated roles, and above all are placed as the norm, the ordinary, the standard. They are not represented to themselves as whites, but rather they are gendered, classed, and sexualized. “Whites are not of a certain race, they’re just the human