Racial Stereotypes In Michael Scott's The Office

Racial stereotypes, the automatic and mental pictures that people hold about members of a certain race. Stereotypes can be found for any race or ethnicity and are typically generalized to a whole group of people, rather than to one individual and their differences. Although racism itself is not as common in today’s world, racial stereotypes do exist and are very common. The popular sitcom, The Office, addresses the serious issue of racial stereotypes by Michael Scott to its audience with different races of characters.

Michael Scott is a delusional manager, who thinks that he gives his employees the utter-most respect, especially those of different race. However, Michael’s recent controversial “Chris Rock” routine impersonation forces the office to administer a racial diversity seminar. The administer introduces himself as Mr. Brown, which makes Michael chuckle sarcastically as he believes it’s the “first test” as Mr. Brown is African American. Michael states that the office is a “color-free zone” and that he does not see Stanley, an employee who is African American, as a different race. Mr.

He points out in the show to his audience that he did not have anyone be an Arab during the game, as he “thought that would be too explosive. No pun intended.” Also in the duration of the game, there were no index cards that read “white,” but rather “Black”, “Jewish”, “Italian”, and etc. He then talks to his Indian employee, Kelly, in a stereotypical Indian accent and welcomed her to his “convenience store”. Michael taunts her to the point where she slaps him across the face, and his response was “now she knows what it’s like to be a minority.” This portrays the fact that Michael’s racial comments are done unconsciously rather than consciously and that he is “colorblind” to the fact that they are other races