African American Stereotypes In Athletes

As an African American, there are several stereotypes placed upon my people. One of the most common is the assumption that “all black men are good at basketball.”

A “stereotype” is a shortcut for a human’s brain to make a snap judgment based on immediately visible characteristics like gender, race, or age. This is when people become biased. For example, the stereotype that girls can’t play baseball made Timmy Oglethorpe and his friends ignore Hazel and not let her join their game. However, in reality, girls are just as capable as boys.

Stereotype: “To believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same” (merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stereotype). Everyone, some way or somehow, falls under some sort of stereotype whether it is positive or negative. Throughout my life, I personally have been affected negatively by the stereotype of being a student-athlete through high school and also here at college. Therefore, in this essay, I will explain how the student-athlete stereotype may affect an individual negatively not only in academics or athletics, but also mentally. I will also prove that the stereotype is, for the most part, a false representation of student-athletes.

Why do all people think that African Americans are good at sports? This one the stereotypes that people say about African Americans most people believe or they say that all African Americans are good in sports because that’s all they see or hear about on T.V, but it’s not always true. I think that if you are white, Latino, Asian or Samoan you can be good at sports, all race can be good at sports if they love it enough. The world thinks that if you are African American you can only play sports and not good at nothing else; like reading, math writing, having a business, owning homes doing things in life besides sports. I know when I started playing sports everyone expected me to play and it wasn’t a surprised to them.

A stereotype is a widely held, but fixed and oversimplified image of a person or thing. Stereotypes can drastically affect the way people view themselves and others.

Stereotypes are a form of prejudice everyone will once experience in their lifetime. Stereotypes are centered around an individual's race, gender, social class, religion, and age. They have been known to be elements people use to make judgments and subjectify people to one key feature. As Gordon Allport states, “ To state the matter technically, a noun abstracts from a concrete reality some one features and assembles different concrete realities only with respect to this one feature”(364). Mr.Allport’s words can be summed up to say stereotypes have been used as key fundamentals to associate one feature or aspect of a person with a group that represents it, typically in an unfavorable way.

Stereotypes are different thoughts that a variation of people hold about people who are different from them. A stereotype can be associated with a single word or slogan; such as nerd, or jock. Stereotypes can be expressed in either a negative or positive way. Most people apply stereotypes in a negative way to make them feel more superior over others. The category that most people would place me under would be the classification of an athlete or jock. The jock title that I have been placed under has been with me pretty much my entire life. I have played sports since I was four years old when I first started playing soccer and tee ball. From that moment on I

According to Dictionary.com a stereotype is something conforming to a fixed or general pattern, especially an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group (dictionary.com).

Alternatively a study was conducted to examine how black and white quarterbacks (QB’s) were described by a major sports publication prior the National Football League draft. During the course of a 10 year period 4,745 attributions used to describe white and black QB prospects exhibited data patterns that resulted in racial stereotypes. Black athletes were primarily described with words and phrases that highlighted physical gifts and a lack of mental ability. Conversely, white QB’S were described as less physically gifted, but more mentally prepared for the game and less likely to make decision making and mental errors (Mercurio 2010). Also a fixed survey was issued to 869 students regarding their beliefs of African American stereotypes and

In my graduating class, there were seven girls: four Arabs, one Somali, one Bengali, and myself, an African American who also has Ethiopian heritage. While in high school, I continuously dealt with a majority of my classmates, as well as some teachers, making remarks that I considered to be racially offensive and made me quite uncomfortable.

Laying the Smackdown on Stereotypes For over a century, professional wrestlers have entertained millions of people across the world because of their athleticism and over the top antics. However, there have been stereotypes made of wrestlers that negatively affect their lives. A stereotype is a widely believed categorization of a group of people that is based on truth, but is exaggerated. It paints a mental picture of a group that infers that a single person has characteristics of all of the people in a group.

All most everyone in there lifetime has stereotyped others are have been a victim of stereotypes. A stereotype is the belief about another culture, race or a person that has no logic or evidence to support there negative thoughts. Many people believe that when a person stereotypes another it is the lack of information or ignorance

“A stereotype is a rigid, oversimplified, often exaggerated belief that is applied both to an entire social category of people and to each individual within it. Stereotypes form the basis for prejudice, which in turn is used to justify discrimination and attitudes. They can be positive as well as negative.” Stereotypes exist within any social group, and social group or cliques which are groups of people who share similar characteristics and interests such as the ones priorly said.

A stereotype is “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing”(Google Dictionary, 2017).Stereotypes serve to generalize groups of people in a widely accepted fashion. In video games stereotypes involving gender can be seen in many AAA titles (big companies). These stereotypes can effect peoples perception of genders on a global scale.

What is stereotype? According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, stereotype is defined as a fixed idea or image that many people have a