Follow the Leader: Exploring Americas Freedom
Ron DeYoung
July 06, 2005
The United States of America and Japan have been in competition with one another since before December 7, 1941 in one way or another. Following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the surrender of Japanese forces aboard the Battleship USS Missouri in 1945, the humbled Japanese began their journey to defeat the U.S. in technological development.
Meanwhile, United States military presence in the Republic of the Philippines was embraced by the natives, either out of a sense of gratitude for delivering them from the Japanese, or because they were scared to death of a nation that would annihilate millions of humans with the passing of one airplane called the Enola Gay.
A few years later, American forces, under the guise of the Truman Doctrine, interceded in a scuffle between North and South Korea. This civil disagreement between two small countries was immortalized and eventually depicted on television as a comedy, as seen through the eyes of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.
Continuing southward on the Asian Peninsula, in the early 1960’s, another skirmish was brewing. North and South Vietnam were trying to decide between Communism and Democracy as a prevailing form of government. The Chinese and Soviets, both powerful Communist countries, supported the North Vietnamese, and the American government, once again in the name of the Truman Doctrine, felt they should send military advisors to assist the South Vietnamese in the preservation of democracy. According to Doctor Kieth Edgerton, a professor of history at Montana State University – Billings, this war may not have had anything to do with Communism or Democracy, but was motivated by the desire for control of Vietnam’s plush supply of rubber trees.
Whatever the motivation behind U.S. involvement in the Viet Nam conflict, it will go down in history as the first time a war was covered internationally by the television media. This coverage also contributed to many Americans seeing for the first time, a foreign nation being depicted continually in a negative light, via daily news coverage.
This abbreviated synopsis covers the United States of America’s military relationships with Asian Culture over a 30 year period of time and briefly touches on media involvement.
Is this where the media first played a role in intercultural communications? Well, let’s see if we can find any other examples that pre-date World War II.
In 1492, a Genoan guy, sponsored by the government of Spain got lost at sea and accidentally “discovered” America. I think that this would be considered the first case of media involvement in intercultural communications, if word of mouth could be considered media.
According to the 10th Collegiate Edition of Merriam Webster’s Deluxe Dictionary, the first usage of the word media in this sense was in 1923. Defined as “a medium of cultivation, conveyance or expression,” I believe it fits the bill.
The media of word of mouth, caused Europeans, in search of a better way of life, to venture to this New World. The first batch of self-righteous “Americans” showed up near Plymouth, Massachusetts. Unbeknownst to these “first” Americans, someone else had already established themselves. They weren’t known as Americans, but they are now known as Native Americans. In the 1500’s however, they were known as Mohegans, Mohawks, Algonquians and Iroquois. In fact, there were over 30 tribes present in the “New World” according to Paula Giese, author of “The Woodland Indians of the Western Great Lakes”.
The first European Pilgrims ran into something they weren’t expecting when the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. A climate and environment they didn’t understand. Were it not for the Natives, many historians believe the Pilgrims would have perished. But the savages taught them to farm and survive in this land known as America. To reward the natives, and escape the puritan rule administered by many European cultures, these God-fearing, fair skinned people began to arrive in droves. Some took the time to learn to communicate with these tribes. Most however just wanted to use the technology they brought from Europe to develop and capitalize on the virginity they found. Unfortunately I feel that most who possessed the ability to communicate, used that gift to disillusion and take advantage of the Native Americans’ naivety.
Over the next two hundred years, the imported Americans arrived and conquered, by populations that were incomprehensible to the natives. Simultaneously, as these people moved westward and “discovered” new lands and opportunities, they trampled the cultures of the people that preceded them and used intercultural communication skills and the media to inform all other white people that these barbarians were nothing more than uneducated animals. Consequently, this is how the Indians were treated, as they were lied to, infected by disease, stolen from, massacred and forced into abandoning their cultures and adhere to the “civilized” cultural norms that the white people believed in.
Meanwhile, as America was becoming civilized, some brilliant entrepreneurs found some large, sturdy tools called Africans that cost very little to maintain, and could work 18 hour days doing the most strenuous of labors. Once you owned some of these tools, with something as simple as a whip, you could train them to do anything. Now these implements were eventually advertised and sold throughout the American South. Unbeknownst to the wealthy plantation owners, these were actually humans! Now some of the do-gooders from the north were aware of the species of these tools . . . and some of them thought it was kind of unfair to force servitude on fellow humans, and force them to reproduce while stripping them of their cultural roots and beliefs.
Well, these educated northerners used the media to tell others that they didn’t think this slavery thing was right. It sounds like a good idea until you identify the tools as humans. By the middle 1800’s, the government found out that this was an unpopular practice in the eyes of some of their constituents that had money, and the sympathy of the press. A little skirmish that we now refer to as the Civil War divided the nation, but eventually the do-gooders of the north prevailed and the President proclaimed emancipation in the Emancipation Proclamation.
Word spread quickly that the African tools were now illegal to own. Nonetheless, several generations of Africans had no idea what their cultural background consisted of. They had to rely on the information that hadn’t been beaten out of their ancestors. They were free to go where they wanted and practice their spiritual beliefs as they pleased. They just had to find out what those beliefs were. Incidentally, many of them had to start from scratch.
Over the years, as opportunity presented itself, bits of African culture were interspersed with bits of Southern culture, and the African-Americans began to pursue education, careers, and ties to their roots. Even though the media told the masses that discrimination was illegal it continued. The main stream white America secretly knew what had been done to this culture and race, but they didn’t have to publicly acknowledge it. “If I don’t look, I won’t see it, and therefore it doesn’t exist”, was the norm. Unfortunately, a lot of this attitude is prevalent today and I believe it persists because of media. For some reason, black people are predominantly portrayed as drug dealers, pimps, and ghetto dwellers. All too rarely do you see news stories of affluent black men and women who are making the world a better place. On the contrary, you see the Washington area snipers, Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson and Kobe Bryant in the news, therefore, the image America and the rest of the world sees is a negative one.
Hispanic presence in the United States of America also predates “Americans”. When that Genoan guy from Spain showed up in 1942, I don’t think they could conceive that over 3,000 miles to the southwest was where the new world ended. I’m confident in my belief that Mayan, Aztec and Incan peoples ventured north of the Rio Grande from what is now known as Central America. Having experienced Hispanic influences throughout a significant part of my upbringing, I don’t recall noticing a definitive difference in our cultures. The first blatant example of media stereotyping of Mexicans that I can conjure up is of Cheech and Chong, a comedic pair of pot smoking idiots who released several albums and a couple movies celebrating the drug culture of the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Since the second and third largest states in the United States are populated mostly by Mexican Americans, I think they are portrayed more positively in the media than any other culture addressed in this paper. In Montana we celebrate Cinco De Mayo, and honor Feliz Navidad. Many white Americans don’t know what Cinco De Mayo means, but they’ll buy imported beer and eat tacos to celebrate the event. Again the superior white American culture must get these people to conform to our standards. Otherwise, they will continue to be portrayed as farm laborers and a less desirable race.
Communicating with the Arabic Nations and cultures has become somewhat complicated in the past couple of years. Prior to 09/11/01, media portrayal of Arabians and people from the middle east consisted of polygamous oil barons, taxi drivers and convenience store operators. With the exception of practitioners of the Muslim faith, Americans for the most part had no desire to understand Arabic customs. They were always portrayed as desert dwelling camel jockeys and on numerous occasions, I’ve heard them being referred to as rag heads.
Due to the shallowness of the American populace, I feel it to be an inappropriate time in history to even explore this subject in regard to Arabic cultures. I will venture to opine a few thoughts however, in regards to Americans, intercultural communications and the media. Personally, I am often ashamed when forced to delve into this subject. I am an American and have been a member of the media. While learning to be an objective broadcaster and journalist, my mentors always stressed unbiased reporting of the facts from all sides of an issue. To me, this was a simple practice to learn, but a complicated practice to adhere to. The reason it was easy to learn was because it was fair and agreed with my personal ethics. The reason it was difficult to adhere to was that most people, including the American government don’t play fair. My first experience of this phenomenon was when, freshly out of journalism school, I was stationed in the Philippines and worked for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. Rule number one, I was instructed, was to never, under any circumstances, report news that was relevant to the host nation. I wanted to inform the public about what the news was, and couldn’t. The country was in the process of ousting President Ferdinand Marcos from his dictatorial rule. I was ordered not to broadcast it to American military forces that were about to be ordered to assist Marcos in fleeing the country to avoid certain death. It was violent, covert and historical, but it wasn’t news.
Who’s to blame? Asians? Native Americans? African-Americans? Mexicans? Arabians? Is it possible to blame everyone that doesn’t believe in or understand our culture, political, and religious practices?
I submit that we, as Americans, do in fact blame anyone with different social norms than us. What I’m having trouble accepting is where this infant of a nation finds the audacity to dictate to the rest of the world how they should govern, practice their spiritual beliefs, fight their wars, or distribute their national resources. How a South African tribe or nation punishes an adulteress should not be legislated by us. If Nepalese Sherpa’s choose to go on strike for better working conditions, why should we care? If millions of Muslim’s need to roll out their blankets at sunset and bow to Mecca, should we be opposed to that?
Who in the hell do we think we are? According to the Associated Press 2003 Style Book, the word “American” is “an acceptable description for a resident of the United States. It also may be applied to any resident or citizen of nations in North or South America.” Any person who resides legally in this country is considered an American.
One of the original reasons for our ancestors to immigrate to this country was that it offered a chance to be different from the status quo. One of our first laws allowed us to believe in any God we choose to worship, without being ostracized. Unfortunately, our news media crave and thrive on anything that varies from the norm, and are quick to publicize any person or practice that in their eyes, are different. We want so badly to be accepted by our peers, that we are quick to jump on the band wagon that mocks what the media deems unusual.
Furthermore, our media and government emphasize which human rights violations are being committed in other nations and cultures, while minimizing the abuses suffered daily by millions of Americans. If our President declares the leader of another country an evil dictator and thinks that leader must be militarily ousted, that’s his opinion. If that nation’s public agrees, they can either oust the individual or suffer. If the President of the United States utilizes United States military resources to extricate that dictator, against the wishes of most civilized nations, he and his advisors are also acting as dictators. Who should remove them from their position of power? The Americans should, but the media is imbedded so far into the forest, they can’t see the democracy crumbling.
Most of us, as American’s, will believe what the government and the media tell us, and are therefore being led around like lemmings. Hence, our bigotry and prejudice are molded into fear. Sadly, as a people, we don’t have the fortitude or courage to express our disgust, lest we join the ostracized.
As long as we accept the government and media telling us what to think of other cultures, I believe intercultural communications will be biased. As humans, most of us are born with an innate sense of what is morally right and wrong. What disturbs me, is that society and the factions that we are conditioned to trust, are the very sources that lead us into prejudice.
Meanwhile, United States military presence in the Republic of the Philippines was embraced by the natives, either out of a sense of gratitude for delivering them from the Japanese, or because they were scared to death of a nation that would annihilate millions of humans with the passing of one airplane called the Enola Gay.
A few years later, American forces, under the guise of the Truman Doctrine, interceded in a scuffle between North and South Korea. This civil disagreement between two small countries was immortalized and eventually depicted on television as a comedy, as seen through the eyes of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.
Continuing southward on the Asian Peninsula, in the early 1960’s, another skirmish was brewing. North and South Vietnam were trying to decide between Communism and Democracy as a prevailing form of government. The Chinese and Soviets, both powerful Communist countries, supported the North Vietnamese, and the American government, once again in the name of the Truman Doctrine, felt they should send military advisors to assist the South Vietnamese in the preservation of democracy. According to Doctor Kieth Edgerton, a professor of history at Montana State University – Billings, this war may not have had anything to do with Communism or Democracy, but was motivated by the desire for control of Vietnam’s plush supply of rubber trees.
Whatever the motivation behind U.S. involvement in the Viet Nam conflict, it will go down in history as the first time a war was covered internationally by the television media. This coverage also contributed to many Americans seeing for the first time, a foreign nation being depicted continually in a negative light, via daily news coverage.
This abbreviated synopsis covers the United States of America’s military relationships with Asian Culture over a 30 year period of time and briefly touches on media involvement.
Is this where the media first played a role in intercultural communications? Well, let’s see if we can find any other examples that pre-date World War II.
In 1492, a Genoan guy, sponsored by the government of Spain got lost at sea and accidentally “discovered” America. I think that this would be considered the first case of media involvement in intercultural communications, if word of mouth could be considered media.
According to the 10th Collegiate Edition of Merriam Webster’s Deluxe Dictionary, the first usage of the word media in this sense was in 1923. Defined as “a medium of cultivation, conveyance or expression,” I believe it fits the bill.
The media of word of mouth, caused Europeans, in search of a better way of life, to venture to this New World. The first batch of self-righteous “Americans” showed up near Plymouth, Massachusetts. Unbeknownst to these “first” Americans, someone else had already established themselves. They weren’t known as Americans, but they are now known as Native Americans. In the 1500’s however, they were known as Mohegans, Mohawks, Algonquians and Iroquois. In fact, there were over 30 tribes present in the “New World” according to Paula Giese, author of “The Woodland Indians of the Western Great Lakes”.
The first European Pilgrims ran into something they weren’t expecting when the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. A climate and environment they didn’t understand. Were it not for the Natives, many historians believe the Pilgrims would have perished. But the savages taught them to farm and survive in this land known as America. To reward the natives, and escape the puritan rule administered by many European cultures, these God-fearing, fair skinned people began to arrive in droves. Some took the time to learn to communicate with these tribes. Most however just wanted to use the technology they brought from Europe to develop and capitalize on the virginity they found. Unfortunately I feel that most who possessed the ability to communicate, used that gift to disillusion and take advantage of the Native Americans’ naivety.
Over the next two hundred years, the imported Americans arrived and conquered, by populations that were incomprehensible to the natives. Simultaneously, as these people moved westward and “discovered” new lands and opportunities, they trampled the cultures of the people that preceded them and used intercultural communication skills and the media to inform all other white people that these barbarians were nothing more than uneducated animals. Consequently, this is how the Indians were treated, as they were lied to, infected by disease, stolen from, massacred and forced into abandoning their cultures and adhere to the “civilized” cultural norms that the white people believed in.
Meanwhile, as America was becoming civilized, some brilliant entrepreneurs found some large, sturdy tools called Africans that cost very little to maintain, and could work 18 hour days doing the most strenuous of labors. Once you owned some of these tools, with something as simple as a whip, you could train them to do anything. Now these implements were eventually advertised and sold throughout the American South. Unbeknownst to the wealthy plantation owners, these were actually humans! Now some of the do-gooders from the north were aware of the species of these tools . . . and some of them thought it was kind of unfair to force servitude on fellow humans, and force them to reproduce while stripping them of their cultural roots and beliefs.
Well, these educated northerners used the media to tell others that they didn’t think this slavery thing was right. It sounds like a good idea until you identify the tools as humans. By the middle 1800’s, the government found out that this was an unpopular practice in the eyes of some of their constituents that had money, and the sympathy of the press. A little skirmish that we now refer to as the Civil War divided the nation, but eventually the do-gooders of the north prevailed and the President proclaimed emancipation in the Emancipation Proclamation.
Word spread quickly that the African tools were now illegal to own. Nonetheless, several generations of Africans had no idea what their cultural background consisted of. They had to rely on the information that hadn’t been beaten out of their ancestors. They were free to go where they wanted and practice their spiritual beliefs as they pleased. They just had to find out what those beliefs were. Incidentally, many of them had to start from scratch.
Over the years, as opportunity presented itself, bits of African culture were interspersed with bits of Southern culture, and the African-Americans began to pursue education, careers, and ties to their roots. Even though the media told the masses that discrimination was illegal it continued. The main stream white America secretly knew what had been done to this culture and race, but they didn’t have to publicly acknowledge it. “If I don’t look, I won’t see it, and therefore it doesn’t exist”, was the norm. Unfortunately, a lot of this attitude is prevalent today and I believe it persists because of media. For some reason, black people are predominantly portrayed as drug dealers, pimps, and ghetto dwellers. All too rarely do you see news stories of affluent black men and women who are making the world a better place. On the contrary, you see the Washington area snipers, Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson and Kobe Bryant in the news, therefore, the image America and the rest of the world sees is a negative one.
Hispanic presence in the United States of America also predates “Americans”. When that Genoan guy from Spain showed up in 1942, I don’t think they could conceive that over 3,000 miles to the southwest was where the new world ended. I’m confident in my belief that Mayan, Aztec and Incan peoples ventured north of the Rio Grande from what is now known as Central America. Having experienced Hispanic influences throughout a significant part of my upbringing, I don’t recall noticing a definitive difference in our cultures. The first blatant example of media stereotyping of Mexicans that I can conjure up is of Cheech and Chong, a comedic pair of pot smoking idiots who released several albums and a couple movies celebrating the drug culture of the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Since the second and third largest states in the United States are populated mostly by Mexican Americans, I think they are portrayed more positively in the media than any other culture addressed in this paper. In Montana we celebrate Cinco De Mayo, and honor Feliz Navidad. Many white Americans don’t know what Cinco De Mayo means, but they’ll buy imported beer and eat tacos to celebrate the event. Again the superior white American culture must get these people to conform to our standards. Otherwise, they will continue to be portrayed as farm laborers and a less desirable race.
Communicating with the Arabic Nations and cultures has become somewhat complicated in the past couple of years. Prior to 09/11/01, media portrayal of Arabians and people from the middle east consisted of polygamous oil barons, taxi drivers and convenience store operators. With the exception of practitioners of the Muslim faith, Americans for the most part had no desire to understand Arabic customs. They were always portrayed as desert dwelling camel jockeys and on numerous occasions, I’ve heard them being referred to as rag heads.
Due to the shallowness of the American populace, I feel it to be an inappropriate time in history to even explore this subject in regard to Arabic cultures. I will venture to opine a few thoughts however, in regards to Americans, intercultural communications and the media. Personally, I am often ashamed when forced to delve into this subject. I am an American and have been a member of the media. While learning to be an objective broadcaster and journalist, my mentors always stressed unbiased reporting of the facts from all sides of an issue. To me, this was a simple practice to learn, but a complicated practice to adhere to. The reason it was easy to learn was because it was fair and agreed with my personal ethics. The reason it was difficult to adhere to was that most people, including the American government don’t play fair. My first experience of this phenomenon was when, freshly out of journalism school, I was stationed in the Philippines and worked for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. Rule number one, I was instructed, was to never, under any circumstances, report news that was relevant to the host nation. I wanted to inform the public about what the news was, and couldn’t. The country was in the process of ousting President Ferdinand Marcos from his dictatorial rule. I was ordered not to broadcast it to American military forces that were about to be ordered to assist Marcos in fleeing the country to avoid certain death. It was violent, covert and historical, but it wasn’t news.
Who’s to blame? Asians? Native Americans? African-Americans? Mexicans? Arabians? Is it possible to blame everyone that doesn’t believe in or understand our culture, political, and religious practices?
I submit that we, as Americans, do in fact blame anyone with different social norms than us. What I’m having trouble accepting is where this infant of a nation finds the audacity to dictate to the rest of the world how they should govern, practice their spiritual beliefs, fight their wars, or distribute their national resources. How a South African tribe or nation punishes an adulteress should not be legislated by us. If Nepalese Sherpa’s choose to go on strike for better working conditions, why should we care? If millions of Muslim’s need to roll out their blankets at sunset and bow to Mecca, should we be opposed to that?
Who in the hell do we think we are? According to the Associated Press 2003 Style Book, the word “American” is “an acceptable description for a resident of the United States. It also may be applied to any resident or citizen of nations in North or South America.” Any person who resides legally in this country is considered an American.
One of the original reasons for our ancestors to immigrate to this country was that it offered a chance to be different from the status quo. One of our first laws allowed us to believe in any God we choose to worship, without being ostracized. Unfortunately, our news media crave and thrive on anything that varies from the norm, and are quick to publicize any person or practice that in their eyes, are different. We want so badly to be accepted by our peers, that we are quick to jump on the band wagon that mocks what the media deems unusual.
Furthermore, our media and government emphasize which human rights violations are being committed in other nations and cultures, while minimizing the abuses suffered daily by millions of Americans. If our President declares the leader of another country an evil dictator and thinks that leader must be militarily ousted, that’s his opinion. If that nation’s public agrees, they can either oust the individual or suffer. If the President of the United States utilizes United States military resources to extricate that dictator, against the wishes of most civilized nations, he and his advisors are also acting as dictators. Who should remove them from their position of power? The Americans should, but the media is imbedded so far into the forest, they can’t see the democracy crumbling.
Most of us, as American’s, will believe what the government and the media tell us, and are therefore being led around like lemmings. Hence, our bigotry and prejudice are molded into fear. Sadly, as a people, we don’t have the fortitude or courage to express our disgust, lest we join the ostracized.
As long as we accept the government and media telling us what to think of other cultures, I believe intercultural communications will be biased. As humans, most of us are born with an innate sense of what is morally right and wrong. What disturbs me, is that society and the factions that we are conditioned to trust, are the very sources that lead us into prejudice.
Print
Email
