As a society we consume racist media stereotypes everyday. In fact, these media messages have sustained the foundation for colorism: the practice of discrimination or bias that favors people with lighter skin versus darker skin. Color-based media stereotypes reinforce self-image, self-efficacy, self-awareness, self-doubt, self-destruction and fuel the building blocks of internalized racism, perception of “others”, racial profiling and discrimination. All people, all colors and ethnicities are impacted. We all have ecological upbringings that shape our belief systems, morals, values and ideologies. With today’s saturation of media, our ideologies, work policies and practices support the institution of racism and it’s largely unconscious. Embedded in the fabric of society, much of our personal and professional actions and habits unconsciously nourish the ubiquity of racism. To build personal and professional anti-racist ideologies, lifestyles and belief systems, we must embrace professional development spaces that challenge our lenses, disrupt unconscious ways of thinking, practice analyzing media, provide cultural education and awaken our innate, collective humanity. The Afro-Media Literacy (AML) experience embraces participants in a cultural and media rich learning space filled with love for humanity that critically analyzes each persons unconscious/conscious role in creating, sustaining, countering and dismantling the impact of institutional racism on each person’s mind, professional environments and surrounding communities. AML blends valuable tools of cultural awareness with 21st Century skills of critical media literacy, increasing participants’ knowledge-base of the cultural communities they serve and teaching participants to challenge dominant stereotypes, images and values they are inundated with, and therefore unconsciously adopt, on a daily basis. Afro-Media Literacy offers a starting point to begin unpacking racism in a way that is contemporary and relevant to all participants.
