Week 8 Post: Images as a Discourse

Blog Post 8

March 5, 2012

Taylor-Mendes 2010

A 3.1, A 3.2, B 3.2, B 3.3

While reading Taylor-Mendes’ piece, I had a hard time taking in the argument. I’m am not sure why I feel this way. There is, I have noticed, some strong rhetoric being used throughout the piece. While I understand that it is important to have textbooks and images that do not just meet the ideal English speaking target audience, I have a hard time problematizing it as much at the author in the article does. I totally agree with a lot of what is being said. But making yourself as an author seem self-loathing and making the rest of the audience who fall into the similar demographics feel as though they should self-loath, is a problem. It can be a turn off for a lot of people and how it did with me, leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I do not believe that many educators “dismiss and ignore the sociopolitical reality in which EFL is taught.” Educators are educated people, and while I am not an in-service educator just yet, I feel that even though I am pre-service I have the common sense and understanding that yes, majority of the images are in fact stereotypical. I do believe that it is something to be problematized, but I feel as though the article is putting a lot of the blame or focus on the teacher. We have to keep in mind that the main audience that the producers are appealing to is of the White, middle class demographics. The producers need someone to gear it towards and trying to incorporate every culture or race or lifestyle in the textbook is near impossible. I feel almost compelled to say that it would be complete reverse stereotyping (if such a term exists) and it would leave the audience feeling patronized. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think that having all different types of cultures, lifestyles and races incorporated is a must, but it needs to be something that comes naturally and should not be over dramatized and/or analyzed. I think that our society is moving to a more diverse mentality and the discourse of images will soon follow.

Further in the article Fatima talks about what she thinks of American based on the images. She believe that America is clean and peaceful, free from poverty and violence. While we all know that this is far from the truth, it is what we portray in our images. Fatima knows that it is impossible for a land to be as happy as America is portrayed, so our images are not fooling anyone. During the study, the White participants were more likely to comment on the racial stereotypes in the images than the non-White participants were. I find that interesting and I wonder why that this was so. The article brings up many good topics to be talked about. It makes the reader critically think what exactly does an American look like? The ideas that we have can be stereotypical, but most often it is something that we are not aware of and it is subconscious. It is a way of life that we have fallen into over many years. But as I stated earlier, I believe it is something that will change naturally and the years go on. We are only on the tip of the iceberg when it comes to complete erasing all stereotypes conscious and unconscious. Pushing it, I believe, is damaging and patronizing.