How It Feels to Be Colored Me

How do you deal with stereotypes towards yourself or others that have experienced them? People are stereotyped by their physical features and by the information we know about a certain group. They are judged by their physical features instead of seeing what they are really capable of doing. Usually not being involved in such a diverse community can cause that because they are accustomed to what's near them. Exploring and learning about others will help shatter stereotypes. We'll explore in Sucheng Chan and Judith Ortiz Cofer essays on how they've been stereotyped and what they've done to shatter the quo.

In the essay, “How it Feels to be Colored Me” written by Zora Hurston, there are many struggles she went through because of being single storied and discriminated against for her race. Throughout her essay, Hurston’s view is from how others look at her on the outside and not what they see on the inside. Though she is different from the status quo of beautiful, Hurston argues that despite the single story by which others define people, they can choose to express their individual by focusing on moments that empower them.

Stereotypes are unescapable. No matter what part of the world you are at or who you are talking to, everyone has some bias. Claude Steele say’s exactly this in his book “Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do” when he states “ We could all take out a piece of paper, write down the major stereotypes of these identities, and show a high degree of agreement in what we wrote.” His piece addresses the effects of stereotypes, which result in what Steele calls “stereotype threat”. Stereotype threat is being aware that there is an expected behavior or response to a certain part of your identity and being afraid to carry out this expected behavior or response. The threat of proving this stereotype can cause you to lose

An example of this is the story is when she states, “I do not always feel colored. Even now I often achieve the unconscious Zora of Eatonville before the Hegira. I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.” Here she is establishing her prominent pride for her skin tone by saying she feels most proud of her coloring when she is against a white wall, or even a white person. Another example of this is when she states, “Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red, and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small, things priceless and worthless. A first water diamond, an empty spool bits of broken glass, lengths of string, a key to a door long since crumbled away, a rusty knife blade, old shoes saved for a road that never was and never will be, a nail bent under the weight of things too heavy for any nail, a dried flower or two still a little fragrant. In your hand is the brown bag. On the ground before you is the jumble it held, so much like the jumble in the bags could they be emptied that all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly. A bit of colored glass more or less would not matter.” Hurston desperately wants the readers to know to not judge what is on the outside of a person because everyone has the same things on the inside. Hurston is now encouraging people to have pride within themselves and to not

Have you ever heard someone say that all Asians are smart, or African Americans are always late, or girls can’t play sports? All if these are called stereotypes. Stereotypes are widely held beliefs for certain groups, and it can be positive, negative, or neutral. In the story “Girls Can’t Play”, Hazel faces a stereotype that girls can’t play ball. However, that is disproved in the story itself and in the article “Why Women Should Play” by Jennifer Shotz.

Hurston makes a prominent statement that she was not born colored; she became colored over the course of her life due to her experiences. She places emphasis on the distinction between her “colored” self and her “unlabeled” self by making it clear to that reader that race is learned, not innate. Hurston’s essay includes various situations that made her aware of her race due to the racist attitudes she experienced. Growing up she was “everybody’s Zora,” which implies that she viewed herself no different than her white counterpart (Hurston). “During this period, white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there” (Hurston). However, this naïve viewpoint changes when Hurston informs the reader that “It seemed that I had suffered a sea change. I was not Zora of Orange County anymore, I was now a little-colored girl. I found it out in certain ways. In my heart as well as in the mirror, I became a fast

1. According to Bryson, what are the three different processes that resulted in your existence? Where in the essay does Bryson discuss each?

Hurston’s essay about being black in the early 20th century is an explanation of who she is. She does not believe her color defines her, but does see the contrasts of black and white cultures. Neither the color of our skin, or differences in our cultures warrant prejudice. Just because someone belittles or passes judgment on you does not mean you are what they say. People can rise above any unjust criticism that exists and be a better person for it.

While in the last half of Hurston’s essay “How it Feels to be Colored Me” she reveals a strain among her color and her uniqueness as she goes back and forth between identifying with and stepping away from her race, “I feel my race. Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and over swept, but through it all, I remain myself,” (Hurston 785). Here Hurston’s imagery conveys strong depictions of a sense of racial unity against the “sharp white background” that she seeks to remove herself from (Hurston 785). Steele’s example of Staple was meant to show that jumping to any conclusion, mainly one based on a person’s race can be wrong, especially when it is impulsive. This goes along with Hurston’s belief that racial identity is important, but if it is made the sole trait of an individual it is harmfully diminishing. Hurston seeks to remove herself from the persecution African Americans once faced, and like Staple she is aware of what white people think about her, but she does not let it define her every move and change who she

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 can be defined as sweeping generalizations about members of a certain race, religion, gender, nationality, or other group. They are made everyday in almost every society. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite often, we develop these ideas about people who are members of groups with which we have not had firsthand contact. Stereotyping usually leads to unfair results, such as discrimination, racial profiling, and unnecessary violence, all behaviors which need to be stopped.

First of all, what are stereotypes? A stereotype is a quality assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality, and sexual orientation, but there is not only one type of stereotype there are actually two types of stereotypes. There are positive and negative ones. For example, a positive stereotype about asians would be that they are smart and polite. A negative one would be something like asians have small eyes or they’re short. Some people may get offended by these and other people will not care about it at all. These are effects from the stereotypes.

Stereotypes can be defined as a standardized conception enveloped to hold a special meaning upheld and thought by a group or collection of people, and they impact our society in many ways (Stereotype). For example, in an interview with Guy Raz from NPR, Jamila Lyiscott says that “And it occurred to me in that, had I been speaking with my family, who’s Trinidadian, or with people in my community who speak black English vernacular, that his women would have made not seen the same worth and value in terms of my intellectual capacity or just me.” (Lyiscott). This shows and explains that people, in particular a lady that had complimented her upon her English, that this lady may have been holding a stereotype against Lyiscott’s community and may not have expected this sort of articulation from her. As you can plainly see, this shows that although stereotypes are not generally accepted by the public, they can still be held by a wide range of peoples.

Stereotypes are always around. Everywhere, everyday. The truth is that there is no escaping it. Walking down the school hallways sounds of the people around echo endlessly. “Nerd,” someone yells. “Loser!” Another student boldly pronounces. Not one individual in the world enjoys being called mean things, or being labeled with a negative stereotype. Would someone give up the some of the things that they love to make a negative stereotype disappear? Would someone go as far as changing their identity because of a stereotype? Why? People change their identity when they are negatively stereotyped because they are either seen as something that they don't want to be seen as, or they would rather fit in then be themselves.

By stereotyping we infer that a person has a whole range of characteristics and abilities that we assume all members of that group have. Stereotypes lead to social categorisation, which is one of the reasons for prejudice attitudes.