but what can be done?

As Paek and Shah of "Stereotyping of Asian Americans in Advertising" put it, "Stereotyping reduces people to a few, simple, essential characteristics, which are represented as fixed by nature. As such, stereotypes are important carriers of society's dominant racial (and other) ideologies." They go on to state that "in societies such as the United States, which are characterized by unequal relations of power, ideology is one means by which dominant groups maintain and legitimate their power over other groups." Stereotypes are harmful to the people being stereotyped and unfortunately, for the most part, those are minorities. Done as either an unconscious action or as a way to try and stop minorities from gaining "power" in society, the outcome is the same and it needs to be stopped. As we have seen, racial stereotypes are not something that can be dealt with by brushing it under the carpet or reluctantly shoving a minority in a photo-shoot somewhere so you wont get a slap on the wrist.
Action needs to be taken to stop stereotyping and get people to see people for who they are as individuals and not judge them based on their ethnicity.
Something that should be done, is bring awareness through the media that is spreading this venom in the first place: advertisements. As Robert Donovan and Susan Leivers did (and wrote) in their journal, "Using Paid Advertising to Modify Racial Stereotype Beliefs", we can put out informative ads that speak truthfully about races and help de-bunk some of these myths. No, not all African Americans are delinquents, not all Latina's are of easy virtue and not all Asians are smart. If it sounds so ridiculous when said out loud then we shouldn't be doing it, especially considering the effect that we know media has on people.
Donovan and Leivers did a study in Australia trying to change the way people saw Aborigines. As they write, "a major aim of the campaign was an attempt to neutralize some of the negative beliefs about Aborigines and employment....these beliefs were targeted because qualitative research revealed hat they formed the basis for the more evaluative beliefs that Aborigines are lazy, irresponsible, and unreliable and that it is these evaluative beliefs that inhibit Aboriginal employment." They say although this plan suffered from the problem of respondent self-selection, there are results that support the fact that mass media can influence racial attitudes in a positive direction. They note how "social marketing and social advertising campaigns have been used across a broad variety of areas from AIDS and energy conservation to immunization and fire prevention, there has been little systematic use of social advertising in the area of racial discrimination." In their conclusions they state that "the campaign achieved a very high level of prompted awareness in the community. The advertising components achieved 88 percent exposure (prompted recognition) for television, 49 percent for press and 30 percent for radio."
Clearly it can be done and should be done likewise in the United States. More awareness needs to be brought to the fact that minorities are underrepresented and done so incorrectly in the media and advertisements.
Our children and younger generations are growing up with altogether the wrong idea about their neighbors and classmates at school and all from the misrepresentations they see on TV and in the media. it can be avoided and it should, now that we know for a fact the impact that media has on us and our psyche, its time we step up and take responsibility and bring about change.