Racial Stereotypes Against African Americans

Stereotypes. They have attached themselves to you since birth, determined on how you look, how you act, your nationality, or the most common factor, the color of your skin. However, it’s not entirely the general populus’ fault. We put labels based on what we see. Things like television shows and movies contribute to this; whether it be a hispanic man portrayed as being illegal, or an asian man portrayed as an owner of a laundromat.

Stereotypes are a form of a label that can be used in a negative way to describe a person. A person should never be labeled due to their race because that does not define who that individual is. No matter someone's race, that person is unique in their own ways. For instance, each individual has different values, beliefs, goals, and characteristics. One can label another person with a stereotype, but that stereotype will not be accurate because each person has their own personality.

An example of stereotyping is basing people on their religion, physical appearance, how much money someone has, etc. There have been many stereotypes mostly based on religion like the Jews in the Holocaust, and physical appearances like in the Rwandan Genocide for the Tutsi and Hutus. (Doc. C) If we don't force or establish any specific groups everyone will then begin viewing each other as equal instead of someone higher or lesser. Document G displays two pictures of a man being classified into a group based on his physical appearance.

Being a fast food worker for the past year and a half, I have been exposed to numerous different types of people, and most of them are not the same race as me. When I first started to get to know them, even though at times there was difficulty communicating, we were able to make it work and build stronger relationships. One of my favorite managers was Rose, a Hispanic woman who had been so kind to me. She was an example of someone who was able to teach me things about herself I could have stereotyped and not taken the time to learn anything about her as an individual. Growing up in Joliet, Illinois has always given me the opportunity to experience race relations on a regular basis, just due to the diversity of the city that I live in.

Mass media has played and will continue to play a crucial role in the way white Americans perceive African-Americans. As a result of the overwhelming media focus on crime, drug use, gang violence and other forms of anti-social behavior among African-Americans, the media has fostered a distorted and pernicious public perception of African-Americans (Balkaran). In this paper I will look at some concerns about how African-American and people of color are portrayed and stereotyped in the media according to Balkaran and Orelus. Also, this paper will draw attention to the impact social media has reshaped religion and how we worship.

When most races hear the words African American, negative thoughts rush to their brains. But why? Africans Americans have been perceived as negative characters to other races for decades. Individuals often forget large amount of blacks have been successful in life and still are accomplishing many things. Today, we live in a world where the bad outweighs the good. Because of this, many individuals of different races lack the knowledge that many blacks are actually achievers instead of failures.

It is believed that the whites obey the law, and the blacks are the criminals. This is so morally wrong that is sad. This ties in stereotypes. When watching the news, it will never show a white person committing a crime, it will only show a black person. So just because of the media it puts a label on African Americans that there all bad.

Over the span of hundreds of years these stereotypes have developed and now help define groups of people. A stereotype is not necessarily a true statement or it may not describe every person in a race but due to popular belief it has become this way. Some people tend to believe that stereotypes are correct and they judge races according to them. When a person is asked to describe someone from a specific race, they will most likely state multiple stereotypes that for most are not even true. This becomes the reason for most racial profiling and increases the barrier between people.

Stereotypes are simple images or beliefs over the attributes assigned to a particular social group, are models of behavior that become schemes deeply rooted in our mentalities to the point that we adopt them as part of human naturalness. Stereotypes can be racial, religious, sexual and social. These could be the caused of a known incident or attitude years earlier, or simply the result of frequent rumors. Stereotypes can affect different spheres of society. These assumptions can filter into many aspects of life.

Hello Prof. Manock and fellow Classmates, Namely, prejudices are formed from one’s upbringing, family background, influences of the media as well as, world history. As, we all know African Americans have been a target of prejudices as well as being discriminated against since they were stolen from Africa, this is a historical fact as well as, several movies such as Roots. As my own personal opinion, Donald Trumps is also recreating this act of cruelty with the Hispanic community.

He wrote this piece to express his important opinion about the effect of racism and how he’s viewed as a man of color. He talks about his first encounter of racism when he was young man in college and was assumed to be a mugger or killer just because of skin. “It was in echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come into the ability to alter public space in ugly ways.” I feel that the author is trying to connect to his vast audience of people who don’t understand what it is like to a black man in society. Later he contemplated that he rejected or shunned by the white race collectively as a dangerous man.

In today’s society, individuals and groups are labeled with either positive or negative stereotypes. People encounter stereotypes everyday and everywhere. It is the picture people paint in their minds when approaching a group or individual when in fact it may be different in reality. Stereotypes affect a person’s way of living and thinking either in a negative or positive way. Stereotypes are based on truth but in an exaggerated way, while misconceptions are formed from having stereotypes.

Stereotypes have been around for decades, and are still prominent today. In today’s society, everybody stereotypes one another, but will not admit that they do. Stereotypes can either be positive or negative. Usually stereotypes are used in a negative approach and can be degrading to an individual. Misconceptions are also used by individuals and can be harmful and unreasonable.

All Asians are good at math, all blondes are dumb, all Muslims are terrorists - these are all common stereotypes. Without even realizing it, stereotypes have undeniably played an enormous role in individual lives. Minds seem to already set a certain image in them based on the people they encounter. People judge others by their skin tone, ethnicity, and physical appearance unconsciously, and this have been proven by many social experiments. Of course, though these stereotypes might be accurate at times, there are situations where they are completely defied.

Today, we are living in a very complex social environment. In today’s society, people are stereotyped in many different ways depending which category an individual is located in. Haven’t you been stereotyped at some point in your life? Or you may have stereotyped someone without even noticing it. Stereotyping is actually more serious than we thought and it is becoming a major problem in our society today.