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Public opinion is simply the complex of preferences expressed by a significant number of persons on an issue of general importance. Blacks were included in national polls and surveys in numbers reflecting their proportion of the population, but typically these surveys yielded too few respondents to produce valid and reliable findings or to explore opinion differences internal to the black community in terms of such things as gender, class, age or region. Black opinion was seen as a mere derivative, secondary and less important compared to white opinion.
Research shows that White Americans are not racist in the old fashioned way; instead they resent or are hostile to blacks because of the whites’ commitment to basic or core American values, particularly individualism. White Americans resist equality in the name of self-reliance, achievement, individual initiative and they do so not merely because the value of individualism provides a socially acceptable pretext but because it provides an integral component of the new racism.
It’s a perceived belief that whites are more intelligent and better than blacks, but the problems facing the black community have been ignored, because they feel like the black community is inferior and don’t have anything better to do. So therefore they refuse blacks the resources they need for a good foundation, like education, jobs and so on. The pervasive and deep sense of alienation from and distrust of the American government as well as the deep racial divide between blacks and whites was reflected in public opinion on hurricane Katrina.
There is a lack of attention and urgency in handling the problems which are facing the black community, both in the past and present. Another powerful function of the press was to attack and remake the stereotypes and negative characterizations that the white press visited on the community. They see the issues affecting the black community and use it to pass negative comments and judgments against them, Instead of addressing the situation and seeking amends.
The mainstream or white media tend to ignore the internal life of the black community, thus the black media serve as a vehicle of intragroup communication and solidarity. The mainstream or mass media gathers and reports news of interest to the mass public, which are mostly middle class whites. Since the 1950’s, content analysis of the mass media has consistently shown that the routine, day-to-day coverage of
African Americans is predominantly negative and stereotypical; blacks are portrayed as poor or criminal and they are shown as entertainers or athletes. The fact is that, black Americans have being fighting for equal rights and opportunities for some time, but discrimination against minorities still exist. We have to keep fighting for any changes we want done in our community and take it upon ourselves to transform some of those issues, because the mass media focus on the problems facing the majority of the American problems in the white community.