Fear Of Stereotypes In Alice Walker's The Welcome Table

In the essay The Way We Lie, Stephanie Ericsson writes that “All the ‘isms’-racism, sexism, ageism, et al.-are founded on and fueled by the stereotype and the cliché, which are lies of exaggeration, omission, and ignorance. They are always dangerous. They take a single tree and make it a landscape.” This quote is important due to the fact that stereotypes play a major role in many aspects of our society. In American society we have a tendency to pass judgment on people just because of a pre-existing stereotype that our society has formed on particular groups over the years. American Society tends to create stereotypes because of the simplicity it adds to our lives, but stereotypes can cause us to oversimplify the characteristics

Although Racial Stereotype is something we experience daily, people should not be quick to judge or make conclusions based solely on skin color. Not every stereotype is true. Staples introduces himself by using the words “first Victim” by doing so he sets a picture in the mind of the reader that when he came up behind the lady on the street, something was going to do happen to her. He is faced with different stereotypes that he experiences daily from different races. Throughout the essay Staples makes the argument that racial stereotype is wrong .Staples explains his thesis through narratives of incidents in his life. He gives details of numerous accounts of people mistaking him for a thief or mugger.

In a study conducted by Ford and Tonander (1998), it was hypothesized that when one’s social identity was threatened by a group who is largely different from them, that individual is likely to form stereotypes. This is based

Though the inequality between genders was not fully resolved until later, the Women’s Rights movement was also beginning to take place at this time (Literature and Its Times…). An apparent problem of American society, then and now, is its tendency toward stereotypes, which will be further discussed later. Hansberry uses her characters and their dreams to draw upon the impact stereotypes have on a person’s ambitions and self-identity.

Making a first impression is akin to a scientific process, albeit a biased one, in which one is put under personal microscopes and scrutinizing eyes frantically searching for a taxonomic stereotype: “black” and “white, “rich” and “poor”, “smart” and “simple”. In fact, one cannot go through a single day without being pushed and squeezed into these one-word adjectives - as if they could totally encompass the depth of an individual. In Deborah Tannen’s There Is No Unmarked Woman, women are “marked”, or judged, through such adjectives based on both the choices that they take and don’t take: from their attire, their hairstyles, their shoes, and even their relationship status. Whereas Tannen claims that women don’t have the freedom to be unmarked like men, Brent Staples’ conflict with his identity as a black man, described in his essay Just Walk on By, reveal a critical point of disagreement in which black men, like women, are also predominantly viewed as members of a stereotype; in which one realizes that - regardless of race, gender, nationality, or any other category - there is not one individual that is a stranger to being marked.

Stereotypes are no secret. Everybody develops them in some way or another and uses them in social interactions. These generalizations, both positive and negative, about a characteristic(s) of a group (“Stereotypes) have existed throughout modern and historical societies. The husband in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” interacts with Robert based off of stereotypes formed from social norms and media portrayals of disabled persons. He treats Robert in a negative manner at first relying on those prejudices, but as he comes to know Robert, he re-develops his stereotypes and interacts with Robert in a more positive way.

Prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping are important topics at the cause of debating within social psychology. A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people, in which certain traits cling to all members, regardless of actual individual variation (Akert, Aronson, & Wilson, 2010). As humans, people assign objects and individuals into categories to organize the environment. Individuals do this for not only organization, but also survival. Is stereotyping inevitable? That is the question; according to Devine (2007), it is, but Lepore and Brown (2007) have to disagree. Devine believes that “stereotyping is automatic, which makes it inevitable.” On the other hand, Lepore and Brown are not convinced that stereotyping is

Stereotyping is a normal part of every one’s life. Humans, by nature, classify things. We name animals and classify them by common characteristics but stereotyping can have negative repercussions, and everyone does it. In a recent study it was proven that everyone has an unconscious need to stereotype (Paul). In Junteenth and The Invisible man, Ralph Ellison argues that stereotyping can cause mayhem by making the people become something they are not.

Throughout the years, racial stereotypes have played a major role in society. Even today, one combines racial stereotypes and prejudice thoughts before one even says a word to the person. Just seeing an African- American man while in a parking lot and pulling out ones phone, can be a simple example of modern-day racial stereotypes.

In life, there is a common ground on which most every person can relate. At one time or another, we have all been promoters of or victims of the unremitting nature of stereotypes. According to the Webster’s dictionary, a stereotype is defined as “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.” Most stereotypes take on a negative form and are based on characteristics such as age, gender, race, status, and personal beliefs. Generally speaking, the greatest problem that arises with stereotypes is that they judge group of people by the characteristics and actions of their ancestors, rather than on an individual basis. More often than not, these assumptions will

Staples illustrates how the nature of stereotypes can affect how we perceive others around us in either an excessively admirable light or, in his and many other cases, as barbaric or antagonistic. In his introductory

Alice Walker who wrote “The Welcome Table” had issues of race and gender that was the center of her literary work and her social activism. She participated in civil rights demonstrations. (Clugston 2010). This short story has a theme of life and death. It shows the plot of the story, the point of view and has symbolism used to show the death of the old woman and what the church members thought of her as a black woman. (Clugston, 2010, Section 7.1 and 7.2) Later in the story, she is walking up the road with Jesus, who came to get her and take her to The Welcome Table that she always

There has been decades of research examining what it referred to as “automatic categorization” (Nelson, 2005. p. 207). Researchers describe this as an essential trait in humans that is a primal response to physical characteristics, such as race, gender, and age, that automatically prompts emotional responses and prejudices. This type of categorization sets the

Most people find stereotypes to be obnoxious, especially when they have to do with sensitive subjects like gender or race. “Stereotyping is a generalization about a group or category of people that can have a powerful influence on how we perceive others and their communication behaviors” (Floyd, 61). Because they underestimate the differences among individuals in a group, stereotyping can lead to inaccurate and offensive perceptions of other people. Although stereotypes are prevalent in almost every society, becoming aware of our perceptions of others, as well as differentiating between both positive and negative stereotypes can help us overcome those stereotypes.

The presences of stereotypes are overwhelming and are developed by both the environment a subject is raised in and their family. Stereotypes, which are pervasive throughout different societies, become intertwined in the collective values of the society as justification for all forms of social, economic, and political inequality among groups (Devine and Elliot 2000;Kaplan 2004; Operario and Fiske 2004). As people become more exposed to stereotypes they start to become a permanent part of a person’s life, they begin to stereotype themselves almost always involuntarily.