Children Need More Than a Few Multi-Ethnic Images on TV

So the advocacy group Children Now is concerned that our children are not observing diversity on television? (“How Children Perceive TV’s World of Diversity,” by Lois Salisbury and Alvin Poussaint, Counterpunch, Nov. 30.)

How about being concerned that our prolifically failing and overweight children (black, brown, Asian and white) are now spending an average of 54 hours per week sitting idle in front of a TV screen?

Should we not be concerned that excessive television viewing negatively affects all sensory development? All cognitive development? That language acquisition, reading skills, creativity, imagination and sense of wonder are all grossly attacked and impeded due to television viewing?

Earlier this year, The Times ran an excellent series titled “Why Our Schools Are Failing.” Consider that part of the problem may have little or nothing to do with our schools at all. The problem is when the self-anointed advocates and protectors of our children spend time and energy fighting for the right of children to watch politically correct television.

JIM URBANOVICH

Santa Clarita

In the issue in which Poussaint and Salisbury assert that TV is biased against Latinos and other liberal-designated groups deserving fairness in the media is a Times-written article on Congressman David Dreier (R-San Dimas) dubbing him as “conservative but compassionate”--another example of demonizing of conservatism even as liberals’ pet groups insist they are the only ones treated unfairly in popular media.

Does The Times hire writers who find it amazing that there are conservatives who are compassionate? Or are these writers subject to the endless diet of pop culture portrayal of conservatism?

For every miscast “minority” group on TV (and movies, books, newspapers and magazines), there are dozens of examples of conservative, traditionalist and business-oriented characters who are vilified and lambasted endlessly, consistently and relentlessly by left-wing writers. Would Poussaint conduct a study of how liberal writers, producers, directors and actors assure that America’s perception of traditional values is skewed and skewered?

STEVE FINEFROCK

Los Angeles

While Children Now is to be commended for surfacing the issue of lack of diversity in television broadcasting and its insidious effects on the self-perceptions of minority children, similar attention should also be devoted to the effects of nondiversity in voice actor and voice-over casting.

While it may not be immediately apparent, when a child is constantly exposed to voices of animated characters and faceless voices on both radio and television (voice-overs) whose tone, inflection and idiomatic expression reflect a European origin, the message is sent that no one else exists, no one else matters. With rare exception (the voice of James Earl Jones comes to mind), all children are given the impression that only “white” voices have power, humor, compassion and, yes, intelligence.

This situation is perhaps more dangerous to young minds than the lack of diverse images because of the very subliminal nature of voice and all of the associated unchallenged assumptions that accompany it.

Is it not just as important to hear, as well as see, people of one’s own race?

KIRK C. RASCOE, Director

Equal Opportunity Programs

Los Angeles Unified School District