ABSTRACT
The often quoted words of W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1903 observation that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line,—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” is no longer the most important aspect of U.S. or international race relations.1 The problem for the twenty-fi rst century has become the question of informing consciousness through the representation of images. The consciousness-producing machinery receives greater and greater investment.2 The mass media have become an effective way to inform consciousness. Through it, powerful groups are able to deny, or more insidiously, hide, subjugating practices. Insofar as black males are concerned, the stereotypes perpetuated by the media are important for continuing black male inequality.3 Moreover, the signifi cance of stereotyping black males is the social sorting of them.
