Black people and stereotypes

Great Debates
1

I do not want to offend anyone in this thread, but rather I want to discuss something that I see more and more requently.

We all have seen the stereotypes of black people out there. The movies “Malibu’s Most Wanted” “Don’t Be A Menace” etc etc, all played on black stereotypes in our culture. We can all name a few common stereotypes right now too:

They dress like rappers.
Talk the loudest in movie theaters.
Commit a large % of crime

the stereotypes go on. Anyways, the one thing I have noticed is that these stereotypes seem to be true. And the worst part is that they are perpetrating their OWN stereotypes. Almost all the balack guys on campus walk around in giant gold chains, wearing basketball jerseys with bandanas tied in a HUGE knot on thier head, and in the movie theaters they seriously won’t shut up about the scene we just saw 20 minutes ago, and have to tell all thier friends on their cell phones, BLARE their rap down the halls so you can hear it down the street, and hog all the basketball courts.

I hate stereotypes and try and avoid them as much as possible, but I just don’t understand why someone would perpetrate thier own stereotype? I’m a big nerd. If you know me, then you would know I’m a nerd, but I am not the stereotypical nerd. I am not pale, nor scrawny, I do not wet my pants when a girl talks to me, and I don’t come out of the Dungeons and Dragons movie screeching about how a Level 1 mage can cast a Level 4 Fireball spell.

The old saying goes :“All stereotypes are based in truth”

2

Well, I don’t think anyone says that a given stereotype is never true, just that you can’t necessarily accurately judge any individual member of a group based on the stereotypes surrounding the group they’re in. Stereotypes don’t often arrive from thin air, with no relationship to reality.
The urban-thug-rapper image seems to be the dominant “type” in popular black culture today, so I’m not surprised you see a lot of it. If you look at the white kids in the neighborhood you’ll probably see a lot of the same (*ugly) clothes and hear a lot of the same (*bad) music blaring from their cars as well.

  • IMHO of course.
3

Yeah, that Condi Rice and that Colin Powell. Jus’ a-screamin’ an’ a-rappin’. They bad.

Don’t get me started on Morgan Freeman and that Portier guy.

And then there’s the Chairman, Chief Executive and President of Merrill Lynch,
Stan O’Neal. Looks like a baaaad dude to me.

Maybe if you look to adults for role models…

4

This is all I had to read, to know you’d be saying something really stupid. How did I know that? Because all the other threads that start out this way are stupid. Oh. Is that a stereotype? Sorry.

5

I behave the way I do because I choose to. Someone else’s stereotypes about “people like me” have no importance. I ignore them. You seem to be saying that if someone’s actions fit some stereotype they should change their actions? Why? To please whom?

Julie

6

I bet you fufill stereotypes about white people.

I bet you can’t dance very well.

I bet you own a pair of raggedy docksiders and khaki cutoffs.

I bet you’ve worn the combination of the above during the cold of winter.

I bet you either really love heavy metal or country music.

I bet you like mayonaisse.

I bet a collard green has never touched your lips.

I bet you look your nose down on people who wear big baggy jeans and bandanas tied around their head.

I bet you live in the suburbs.

I bet you live in a middle class household.

I bet you don’t have any black friends.

I bet you don’t know what “Dark-n-Lovely” is or what it does or how it smells.

I bet you’re a big nerd like all white people.

And I bet I’m probably wrong on some or maybe even most of these assumptions.

But the truth of the matter is that you’re fulfilling stereotypes. So the answer to your question of why black people fulfill stereotypes: they’ll stop perpetuating them when you stop perpetuating yours.

7

quote:

Originally posted by Sinful
I hate stereotypes and try and avoid them as much as possible, but I just don’t understand why someone would perpetrate thier own stereotype?

That’s just silly. Lots of young people (white, black, eskimo, russian) “dress like rappers”. Just like lots of young people dress like “sluts” or “pimps” ala Britney and her gang. I’ve seen this silly “thug” stereotype batted around by some people.

I’ve never been able to understand how they’re observant enough to see the clothing and silly walk and “gangsta” talk. But they can’t see that lots of times it’s just kids in “a phase” just like tons of kids in the 80s had big blue mohawks (though usual disclaimer applies, I’m sure there are people who have adopted this “style” for life, or who might truly BE thugs etc).

8

monstro, I couldn’t resist…:smiley:

1.) I bet you can’t dance very well.
I can. (but probably not the hip hoppy stuff, NOT because I’m white though, because I’m too damaged [recent crushed fibula] and have ancient knees).

2.) I bet you own a pair of raggedy docksiders and khaki cutoffs.
Do jeans or old sweats count? :slight_smile:
3.) I bet you’ve worn the combination of the above during the cold of winter. LOL, not THIS chilly willy

4.) I bet you either really love heavy metal or country music.
You got me there, I adore metal, but only the “good old stuff”.

5.) I bet you like mayonaisse.
LOL, um yes but only on sandwiches, does THAT count?

6.) I bet a collard green has never touched your lips.
Nope, but I’ve tried okra and it is ICK EEEEE

5.) I bet you look your nose down on people who wear big baggy jeans and bandanas tied around their head.
No, I just always wonder how they can stand the seam of the jeans’ crotch around their knees, and I also wonder if they aren’t aware that the style looks a bit like a toddler with a full diaper.

6.) I bet you live in the suburbs.
Sigh, I wish, I live in the “wilds” of Alaska ugh.

7.) I bet you live in a middle class household.
guilty

8.) I bet you don’t have any black friends.
Not any young baggie jeans/bandana wearing ones. All of my black friends are old fogies like me :slight_smile:

9.) I bet you don’t know what “Dark-n-Lovely” is or what it does or how it smells.
SURE I do!!!, I used to fuel 747s and I used it on my hair every shift to protect my hair against fuel spills (it smells good).

10.) I bet you’re a big nerd like all white people.
Define nerd :slight_smile: (I probably am one )

11.) And I bet I’m probably wrong on some or maybe even most of these assumptions.
I don’t know (giggling) for me you were right on the money about half of them!

Exactly.

9

There’s a difference between a (harmful) stereotype and a trend.

Establishing that members of a particular ethnic or cultural group or culture dress in a particular way is no surprise.

10

Let’s see…

No. Was chucked out of ballet class at the age of four and things have not improved.

  1. What are docksiders? and 2. No

No (see above)

Neither. Pop.

No, it’s a bit gloopy.

Not sure - what is a collard green?

Who? A (female) friend of mine sometimes wears a gipsy-style scarf, but I’ve been to gutless to tell her it looks foolish.

Not really. Back in the UK, more of a village.

I did. Now I live in a desert slum of my own making.

Pretty much every shade of non-white from ebony to a light Levantine tan.

No. I know what “Fair and Lovely” is though. It’s skin bleach that Arab and Asian women use. I’d kill for their melanin, life’s never fair.

Possibly. Three laptops and a wireless LAN. And an Xbox. And I’m crap at sport.

Most. I think I must be a British White Stereotype, not an American one. Ask about the stiffness of my upper lip, and my bulldog spirit, and you’ll probably pin me down… :wink:

11

Yep, I guess I fit right in…somewhere :cool:

12

Sorry about the quote above. I missed my coding apparently. My answers are in the parenthesis. No PC geek here. :slight_smile:

13

Yay! This is so much fun. Now Sinful needs to write an OP on “Men and sterotypes” so Monstre can come up with a fun (if unintentional) poll on female sterotypes.

14

How did a thread entitled, “Black People and Stereotypes” come to have a White People Stereotype Conformity Questionaire in it?

Here’s a dirty little secret regarding much of the conformity to stereotypes – at least in terms of fashion, public behavior and groupthink – among many young blacks: much of it is peer pressure.

In urban areas there is such an anathema to being perceived as ‘acting white’ that young black people bend over backwards to embrace perceived black cultural traits, many of them negative. The streets are crawling with wiggers, and a lot of them are black.

In historically black colleges, the usual introspection of youth to “find themselves” can have your mild-mannered glasses wearing slightly overweight son from the ‘burbs of Decatur, GA ditching the rims, bulking up like Biggie and cussing like Ol’ Dirty in South Central drive-by by Christmas break his freshman year.

Personally, I blame the media.

I just hope black hip-hop counterculture gets eaten up soon.

15

Don’t nobody up in here know what “docksiders” is? I ain’t misspronouncing the word, is I?

</me perpetuating black stereotypes to the chagrin of the stereotype-resistant white folks>

16

where the hell did ‘oh white people must like mayonaise’ crapola come from? I can’t stand the stuff!

17

I wonder about that myself. All I could come up with is that Mayonaisse is white.

18

I think I cracked it, Mayonaisse is white, bland and has no taste, oh wow, so funny I forget to laugh.

Come see me when some good cracks at stereotyping appear.

Urgh.

19

OOOOOoooooohhhhhhhh… those are Docksiders…

I’m not taking the test… but I doubt that was the point of posting it…

I don’t consider dressing like rappers to be a stereotype… it’s just a style.

20

I hope no one thought my post back there was actually serious.