A blogger describes how the media effeminizes Asian men and masculinizes black women:

Three major stereotypes – that have come into being in history and have since been reinforced by popular culture – inform the perceptions of beauty in Western culture today, says Nitasha Sharma, an anthropology professor at Northwestern University who researches difference, inequality and racism in Asian-black relations. 

The first stereotype is that black men are aggressive and hyper-masculine – “walking penises” – and Asian women are the perfect wives – docile, submissive, obedient, shy and waiting to be saved, Sharma says. Second, Asian men have been de-sexualized as small and weak brainiacs excelling at math but unable to get the girl, while black women have been seen as too aggressive, independent and outspoken to be proper wives. The third stereotype portrays whites in a position of power and “globally desired,” a key to gaining a higher social status.

Love is not colorblind, Sharma admits. However, to claim that height and shape or symmetries of the face make some races more desirable than others is a “complete baloney,” she says.

If you think of Asian men or black women as less attractive than other races, it is because of you, not because of them, Sharma says. Since the day you were born, different influences on your mind – the bedtime stories your Mom read, the cartoons you saw as kid, the school you went to and the wallpaper on your computer – have come together to create a cohesive image of the world.

Popular culture – movies, TV, cartoons, books – aim to reflect reality and end up reinforcing it as well. “This is not a matter of brainwashing,” Sharma says. “It’s how people make sense of their position in society.” Stereotyping puts people in categories and helps us explain a complex world with oversimplification.

Look at those figures:

On screen, black characters use profanity 89 percent of the time, versus white characters who use profanity 17 percent of the time. Blacks are depicted in physical violence 56 percent of the time, while whites play violent roles just 11 percent of the time, according to Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki’s 2000 book “The Black Image in the White Mind.”

Blacks are further shown as either lazy or hypersexual, while Asian men, to the extent that they are portrayed at all, are either momma’s boys or effeminate computer dorks with no social skills, Entman says.

“If you can come up with an example [in movies] where an Asian man is shown in a sexual role with a white woman, I’d be shocked. Shocked!” Sharma says.

Asian men normally do not take the romantic lead. During its 15-year run, the NBC show “ER” did not star a single Asian in a leading male role. “Grey’s Anatomy” showed the romances of six white characters – exclusively with other white people – and between a black male, Dr. Preston Burke, and an Asian female, Dr. Cristina Yang. An iPhone 4 FaceTime commercial features three couples – all of them white men video calling either white or Asian female mates. There are countless more examples.”