Ethnic Notions argues that African Americans were represented on television and in plays in the way that was most convenient for those in power. This is proven when slavery was in full bloom and most of America was pro-slavery; African Americans were portrayed as simple people, or in films the most common were large black servants. She was often very affectionate with the family she served and seemed very happy with her life. Then, when slavery began to become an issue, slaves were portrayed in drastically different ways. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Once people began to have a negative view of slavery, slaves were portrayed as a people who reverted to a certain savagery and who needed the "white man" to help them. So these African American slaves were portrayed in way to keep them at the social level that those in power wanted them to be. It's a perfect cycle in which they were represented in such a way that the people, the American population, saw them, the slaves, that way and then in turn. he believed they acted that way. Race: The Power of an Illusion addresses these ideas in a different but similar way. At the beginning of the documentary, Race: The Power of an Illusion, the question of what race is and whether they separate. races? Normally people think of race as something biological, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Race is a social construct that has survived since slave times to benefit the white males of the time. It is an illusion and, in turn, a social construct. It's a whole story, a fugazi of society. The documentary raises probably the most commonly “known” aspect of race and that is that black athletes have an advantage over white athletes. The belief at the time was that black people had to have something different about their bodies to give them a physical advantage. Obviously these claims are false and based on fictional science, but they were used as a reason to explain why black athletes beat white athletes in the era of eugenics. Race may not be “real” in terms of biology, as there are small differences between people with different skin colors, but race is real in terms of how we see a person. Race is very real in how we see a person. This could also be seen in the slave era, when Thomas Jefferson wrote that blacks were savages, while calling Indians brave warriors, because they were closer to being white. This idea that “race” can categorize a person has continued and still lives in modern stereotypes. When I was asked to watch a TV show, my immediate thoughts went to South Park and the Zimmerman episode about the World War. In the episode Eric Cartman is trying to befriend Token, the token black character, because of George Zimmerman's verdict. Cartman believed that black riots would destroy the world and was trying to stop them via Token. Now, obviously, this type of social commentary is that of satire, but the underlying idea that blacks are savages still resonates as it did in Ethnic Notions and Race: The Power of an Illusion. Even after hundreds of years people still have this idea that we as a society, being white, should still fear black people. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay South Park as a whole because it actually has a lot of class.