Personal Narrative: Common Stereotypes Of Black People

Asians always have perfect scores on the test and aspire to be doctors. African Americans have serious attitudes, are thugs and live in poverty. While all Hispanics are illegal immigrants, who can not speak English and commit vicious crimes. If you watch much television, all of these previous statements may seem true. Television is a powerful source of knowledge that in some ways help us understand others in humanity and ourselves.

Stereotypes seem to be very present in our country, especially stereotypes towards African-Americans. For the longest time, like it has been instilled as a fact in my brain, black people have been directly related to the words “ghetto” or “hood”. I don’t remember a time where I actually can remember the words “ghetto” or “hood” without the picture in my mind of an African-American person. I think that this is a big problem in today’s society because it is not true but still seems to be taught. In politics, society, and everyday life, it feels like African-American’s are being slammed for being hoodlums. This is a problem because there are millions of African-American people who do not fit this stereotype, but still get degraded and treated badly because of this age old belief.

As I walked into the lunchroom on the first day of fifth grade at my new school, I noticed the different races that sat before me. There were a handful of Asians, few hispanics and little to no other races besides the white majority. Then there were the black kids, small in

Racism and stereotypes occur greatly throughout the life of Jesmyn ward. The Men We Reaped would talk about how African American males would not leave their town because all of the influences that are around their life. So the research articles in sociology and psychology talk a lot about the stereotypes of African American males and women are more prone to stay in their home town and not do much with their life. So these articles hopefully will give insight to anybody that reads these articles and realize how people actually stereotypes African Americans. The way Men We Reaped relates to the topic that I chose and the book has material that talks a lot about racism and stereotyping.

A stereotype is a popular belief about specific types of individuals. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions. African Americans have been perceived to be someone they are not in the media, history, and in everyday life. Although some stereotypes are true, many are harmful and inaccurate.

African Americans have been oppressed ever since slavery was abolished and it seems to be a never-ending cycle. White Americans oppressed the black population because they needed a way to remind everyone of their so-called supremacy. They did this through many different ways but the most common were by theatrical performances. Ever since the minstrelsy shows the negative stereotypes of African Americans seem to keep growing. According to the book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, “in almost every American movie in which a black had appeared, filmmakers had been trying to maintain the myth that Negroes were naturally rhythmic and natural-born entertainers.”

As we all know, African Americans did not originate from the United States. We were abducted from our homeland and brought here on slave ships by the hundreds. Before we were taken we were living a sustainable lifestyle that fit our basic needs. We ate fruits, vegetables, and meat from game that we hunted and gathered from the land. We also used herbs and natural remedies to cure us of our ailments instead of prescribed medication and radiation treatments. Today, many African Americans face countless health issues such as diabetes, asthma, HIV/aids, high blood pressure, obesity, and the list goes on. Many of these health issues come from the lack of education of our past, where we reside, and many stereotypes that are embedded in us in society.

Our society is fabricated with the many stereotypes that exist regarding each and every race, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc. African American youth are among the greater numbers that are instantly judged and labeled with those stereotypes. There are a handful that may be considered positive, however, the vast majority of stereotypes are built off of the imperfections of a given group of individuals. That being said, a higher education will grant a better reputation for African American youth, compared to the reputation that has already been set for them. Education is by far, the most valuable asset that anyone can have in a lifetime, especially for groups of individuals such as African American youth.

Black people have been known to be able to do incredible things from themselves and others. They are able to turn nothing into something and use it for the greater good of their own communities. Since the Great Renaissance and the inception of the Black Wall Street, African-Americans were a force to American society. Through the Black Wall Street, with their own money, Blacks were able to open up jobs and business that would recreate and maintain the socioeconomic flow within their own communities. Businesses, shops, banks, and health care facilities came out of the Black Wall Street. Since its destruction in 1921, African-Americans and their sense of having something that they can call their own has not been revitalized. Till this day, Blacks rely on their white counterparts to fulfill their needs in day-to-day living. There are a few ways that African-Americans can give to themselves, which will continue to give throughout the year. In return, this will make them (as a people) stronger, more unified, and powerful than ever before.

Humans have a natural instinct to try to understand unfamiliar demographics based on information displayed to them via media outlets and other people; this instinct is called stereotyping. Stereotypes are "cognitive structures that contain the perceiver 's knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about human groups" (Green). Stereotypes have been proven to affect young adolescents. Media depicts African Americans in stereotypical ways that negatively affect self-esteem, therefore all media outlets should display African Americans in a more realistic and rational way.

Over the years, stereotyping has reached an all-time high especially in this contemporary society. Everyone is stereotyped in different ways whether it is their race, religion,  gender or culture  and unfortunately this only results in negative outcomes.For example African Americans are stereotyped as violent and wild individuals that are uneducated gang bangers, but the real question is how did this stereotype come about and why is it still relevant today? In the movie "Crash it gives great examples of stereotyping and prejudice behavior towards different racial groups. They had two different examples of  a group of people that are the same race living completely different lifestyles. What people fail to realize

Everything isn't as plain as black and white. It's a matter of gray, or color. When we think of grays, we picture big-headed black eyes teetering on scrawny bodies. Terms modeled after the extraterrestrial idea are alien species. A species that has been introduced to living outside its native distribution range, whether accidental or deliberate. When we think of color we imagine something close to Skittles--"taste the rainbow"--imagination or racism. The modern victim of racism, African-Americans, we're forced from their native land and ended up thriving on alien territory where they were despised by the minority--hence, the Three-Fifths Compromise. They were the alien species introduced to living outside their native land, deliberately.

I will start off with the stereotypes of Hispanic/Latinos. They include being a gardener, probable gang member, hard workers that work all the time, great soccer and baseball players, maids, and nannies. Though some of these things may be true, not all of us are like this. Then there are the African Americans, they are all assumed to very athletic and good at basketball. Other stereotypes are ghetto, uneducated, do not know their biological father and so on. Asians are stereotyped to be super smart, to own a liquor store, they are all bad drivers, and have a lot of money because they are cheap and money hungry. White Americans have the higher up successful business man stereotype and also the hillbilly southern redneck stereotype. Another stereotype is that white people cannot dance.

African Americans have endured many years of mistreatment and oppression. Even though slavery and segregation ended hundreds of years ago the mockery of African Americans continued. Media portrayal of African Americans includes many negative stereotypes such as: all blacks are lazy, uneducated, oversexed, rebellious, untidy, and zany. Much of African American cinema displays brutal harshness such as repression, racism, and struggle. The only positive roles that African Americans were offered were roles that displayed oppression such as loyal servants, mammies, and butlers which just reinforced that the proper role of blacks were to serve whites.

Through my life, I realised that people persecuted me based on their point of view (bias). For example, I was protecting a defendant Tom Robinson, and who were suffering from white people’s biased prejudges towards them merely because of his skin colour. But people started to prejudge towards me just because of my protective attitude to black people. What should I get prejudged so badly just because of showing protective attitude towards black people? Why should black people get treated differently just because of their skin colour?