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The history of stereotypes
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African american stereotypes history
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While I was reading chapter five of A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki, I was struck with an epiphany. There was a specific quote that stuck out the me the most at the beginning of chapter. “Victims of discrimination, segregation, and violence, northern African Americans encountered a powerful cluster of negative racial images. These stereotypes contributed to the conditions of racial degradation and poverty, which in turn, reinforced prejudice.” (Takaki, ).
There is a channel called MTV News: Decoded which does an excellent job of discussing racism and cultural issues. It’s interesting to read about the type of backlash black americans faced just due to negative stereotypes back during the 18th and 19th century, and also during today’s
times. The specific videos titled “Are Fried Chicken & Watermelon Racist,” “3 Black Female Stereotypes that Need to Die,” and “5 Bizarre Historical Ethnic Stereotypes” discussed the problematic and harmful aspects of these stereotypes and how they affect the people they are about. It really made me think about how people face discrimination and prejudice socially. It’s very upsetting that no matter how many laws we change, it still takes a long time to undo to social injustice we as a society can intentionally or unintentionally inflict. Even something as what can seem as harmless as a negative stereotype, it can still impact the lives of so many people. It’s sickening to think that negative stereotypes have put the lives of many into situations such as poverty or feeling extreme shame. I believe that even in today’s society, we all still learn and/or inherit a mindset where people of color are inferior to white people. I think it’s clear that history shows that we all need to be efficiently unlearning this conditioned ideals of institutionalized racism.
Ghettos, low-riders, hip-hop, rap, drugs and crime, it has got to be a Black man right? Saggy pants, unintelligible language, lazy, and the lists continue to both stereotype and describe Blacks. Do Black Americans perpetuate their own discrimination? Are Black Americans creating their own low status in society? Black people around the world have been hypnotized into believing all their failures in life are due to discrimination, but are they correct? Blacks are often their own worst enemies, often the cause of their own disasters, and many don’t see that until it’s too late, if ever. Discrimination and prejudice are imposed upon Blacks, often because the culture they live in is not “acceptable” to the dominant society. On the other hand, an understandable reason for Blacks actions is often due to unattainable opportunities towards the American Dream.
1. What is the argument of Ronald Takaki’s A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America? How does Takaki make that argument?
People in America are not all seen as equal, and this is especially true when it comes to people of color. According to “Theories and Constructs of Race” by Linda Holtzman and Leon Sharpe: “The continuous racial targeting of people of color and the privileging of whites, along with the misinformation about race passed along from one generation to the next and reinforced through the media, has imbued people of all races with a distorted sense of personal and group identity” (Holtzman and Sharpe 604). This quote means that people of color are often targeted in a negative way, which shows that racism and discrimination is something that can be passed down or learned from the media. Today, there are people who still think minorities are inferior based on the color of their skin. “Theories and Constructs of Race” also mentions how from an early age, minorities become the target for racism, blame, and overall hatred. According to “Theories and Constructs of Race” by Linda Holtzman and Leon Sharpe: “The myth of racial inferiority and superiority has been upheld not only by physical violence and discriminatory policies but also by the psychological violence conveyed through stereotyping and racist messaging” (Holtzman and Sharpe 604). This quote means that minorities are constantly targeted both physically and psychologically, which shows that inequality is a “monster” due to the damage it causes to individuals on multiple levels. Racism can also lead to internalized racism, which causes individuals to adapt a self-deprecating attitude and engage in self-destructive behavior. Furthermore, hate, racism, and discrimination often result from people not understanding that not everyone is offered the same opportunities due to the lack of
3) Stereotypes of Race “Who, Negroes? Negroes don’t control this school or much of anything else – haven’t you learned even that? No, sir, they support it, but I control it. I’s big and black and I say ‘Yes, suh’ as loudly as any burrhead when it’s convenient, but I am still the king down here” (Ellison
The author provides several examples of survey results that illustrate this. For example, while a majority of whites wanted separate schooling, transportation, etc. for blacks, less than 25 percent of whites wanted that in the 1970s. Also since 1940, the number of whites who believe and act on the stereotypes of blacks has decreased significantly (though, it is still high, ranging anywhere from 20-50 percent). Bonilla-Silva provides four trends in which these changes in racial attitudes have changed: racial optimists, racial pesoptimists, symbolic racism and sense of group
Ronald Takaki is one of the foremost-recognized scholars of multicultural studies and holds a PhD. in American History from the University of California, Berkeley. As a professor of Ethnic Studies at the same university, he wrote A Different Mirror: a History of Multicultural America as a fantastic new telling of our nation’s history. The book narrates the composition of the many different people of the United States of America.
Since 1945, in what is defined by literary scholars as the Contemporary Period, it appears that the "refracted public image"(xx) whites hold of blacks continues to necessitate ...
In class, we watched a film called Ethnic Notions. In this film, it brought to light how devastating and powerful images can be. Due to exaggerated images and caricatures created pre-civil war era of black men and women, stereotypes were created and have negatively affected the black race in society. Caricatures, such as the Sambo, Zip Coon, Mammy, and Brute, have unfortunately been engrained in the minds of generations. So much so their stereotypes still persist today.
In today’s age, African-Americans are still viewed as the lower race. There are entire ghettos associated with housing only African-American individuals and cities are divided among racial lines. For example, our hometown of Chicago, the north serves as residence to the “whites” while the south end of the city home to “blacks”. There is a wide-spread belief that African-Americans are not as smart as the rest of the population, are in some way related to a criminal background, and/or do not care about their betterment in any way and are lazy. This is because, Mills argues, racial realists associate racial characteristics to the “peculiar” history of that race. This makes argument makes logical sense given the oppressive history of African-Americans in
Before reading A DIFFERENT MIRROR by Ronald Takaki, the title probably illustrates an issue about images of people and where they come from, but what sets them alike is being human and the blood flowing though their veins. The book starts off of with Takaki going to Norfolk for a multiculturalism conference. He first starts off talking to taxi man who questions him ‘“How long have you been in this country?”’ and he answers “All my life” (1). Takaki gives the taxi man a preview about how he came to live here in the United States. Based off of that conversation, it seems that the taxi man who is in his late forties thought that he was not born in America due to his appearance. He judge Takaki as one who couldn’t understand nor speak english that well. In response humans shouldn't judge a book by its cover. The taxi man judged him as one who isn’t from the United States and couldn’t speak. At this point he realized that there was an “uncomfortably conscious of a racial” division ( Takaki 1).
In The Marrow of Tradition, author Charles W. Chesnutt illustrates examples that signify the thoughts that whites had of and used against blacks, which are still very much prevalent in public opinion and contemporary media. Chesnutt writes, “Confine the negro to that inferior condition for which nature had evidently designed for him (Chesnutt, 533).” Although significant strides have been made toward equality, the media, in many instances, continues to project blacks as inferior to whites through examples observed in television shows, music videos, films and newscasts. According to Poverty & Prejudice: Media and Race, co-authored by Yurii Horton, Raagen Price, and Eric Brown, the media sets the tone for the morals, values, and images of our culture. Many whites in American society, some of whom have never encountered black people, believe that the degrading stereotypes of blacks are based on reality and not fiction....
The most prominent demonstration of racism in America had to be the slave codes that were in place in all states where slavery was practiced. In “From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans,” John Hope Franklin went into detail on slave codes on pages 137-138, “…these laws varied from state to state, but most of them expressed the same viewpoint: that slaves are not people but property and that laws should…protect whites.” One law stated that those enslaved could not bear arms or strike a white person, even in self-defense, but when a white person killed a slave it wasn’t even considered murder. Africans had no standing in court, they couldn’t testify or be a party to a lawsuit and their marriages were not legally binding. Raping an African American woman by her master wasn’t considered a crime either. The slave codes were designed to oppress, persecute, and humiliate blacks by the hands of the whites. With the slave codes and the eventual Jim Crow laws and any oppressive laws and segregation practiced in America, the idea of blacks being inferior was stamped into the minds of any person living in the country. African Americans were treated as subpar, they weren’t considered human beings and to this day the same belief is held unto, although not nearly as outright or not as blatant as in the past centuries. Slavery in itself is a large example of how racism is and may always be embedded into American society; blacks had to fight to even be considered citizens, be able to vote, and be given basic human rights. Though many would deny the existence of racism, the sad truth is that racism may be an ever-present concept in American society.
During the first quarter of the year in WMST 1172, the most influential reading I read/listened to would be, The danger of a single story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This is because the idea of the single story proposed by Adichie related and linked to my own personal experiences with stereotypes made by others in the dominated white community I lived in for the first half of my life. Correspondingly, according to Adichie, people who know only one part of the story, not the whole story, create stereotypes. In other words, the stereotypes created are from incomplete stories individuals hear. And although they may be true, they should not be used as a way to define a group of people.
Every society has history that shapes the way people think and act. Mankind tends to conform to the way things have always been, even though they may not be right. Slavery, for example, is an instance that has impacted society, even today. Though slavery has been abolished, it has since led to discrimination and the dangerous beauty standards of many places. Far too often, society is guilty of equating “beauty” with “white”, and especially during a time that was far less accepting, it pushed the idea of beauty beyond a person’s physical appearance; it was now a signifier of one’s importance and worth. Many characters in The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, are led to believe, that their beauty, or “whiteness”, defines their value in society.
To start off, blacks (in general) are constantly miseen. For example CNN reported a story in September of 2013, a black couple Dennis White and Cherie Johnson were driving past a beach and stopped in front of a cotton field to take pictures in Marion County, S.C. Not long after a policeman questioned them of drugs in their bags and loose money. I know that if this couple were white, the policemen would not have pulled them over. Which is why I believe stereotyping should stop. The word “Stereotype” is usually a fake fact that is associated with a race, (anyone's race). To add on, black boys (Typically under 18) are bombed with stereotypes that criminalize them.