I have found that there are sometimes lots of truths within a steretype, but at times I can’t see how some stereotypes came into existence.
Therefore, I thought it would be a good debate, because I’m sure there are statistics and people who know how to use them on this site to support or deny certain stereotypes.
I am in no way racist, I just have a hard time with some of these stereotypes I’ve heard throughout my life.
I will post some:
Black people have a hard time getting cabs because they’re known to rob the drivers.
Black people steal, more-so than any other race.
Black people take advantage of welfare.
Black people have more kids than any other race.
There are more illegal Hispanics than there are legal ones in this country.
Hispanics are the main ones “taggin walls” with graffiti in this country.
Young Hispanic males are all gang bangers.
African Americans have the highest level of HIV and/or AIDS. - This one I do think is truth, though.
According to an article in the Yale Law Journal in 1996, most welfare recepients are not African-Americans. Also, on an internet site just this past week, I found a map that indicated that the states with the most welfare recepients are the northern Midwestern states – generally urban poor.
diggleblop, if you don’t believe these stereotypes, why debate them?
I believe African-American women are the fastest-growing group in re AIDS infections. This has a LOT to do with the generalized homophobia within A-A culture and the consequent high incidence of men “on the down-low”, who have unprotected sex with other high-risk men and then go back to their socially-approved girlfriends/wives. But I don’t know that there’s any truth to the idea that A-A have the highest level of HIV in any absolute sense.
Where do the stereotypes come from? Lzy people generalizing from bad data so as to marginalize or demonize a people different from themselves, just as the overwhelming majority of stereotypes.
Black people have a hard time getting cabs because they’re believed to rob the drivers. One person’s irrational fear is not the responsibility of the target of that fear.
This is just old Jim Crow era nonsense to demonize blacks. Blacks are disproportionately present in the criminal justice system, but that is a combination of harsher drug enforcement in the inner cities along with the higher percent of blacks living in poverty. However, there is no particular predisposition among blacks to steal that is greater than that among whites.
People of all “races” take advantage of welfare. Since a larger percentage (not number) of the black population than the white population has used welfare, many people make the false assumption that most people on welfare are black and when they hear of welfare fraud, they lazily assume it is “black” people committing it. Many blacks do commit welfare fraud–as do many people of other ethnic backgrounds.
My memory is that whites and blacks have very nearly identical “replacement” rates with Hispanics having slightly more (and I have not seen an estimate on Asians). Basically, this is an unsupported stereotype.
. Utterly false. There are claimed to be between 10 and 20 million illegal immigrants of all nationalities in the U.S. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic population in March, 2006 was 43,168,000.
Is there a thriving tagger culture in the Hispanic community (as well as in other ethnic communities)? Sure. That hardly means that all (or even the majority of) taggers are Hispanic, although it might be true in places like Southern California where there is a large Hispanic population.
I’ve been hearing variations on “Heterosexual women are the fastest-growing group re AIDS infections” for fifteen years now. You’d think they’d all be infected by now.
White people outnumber black people in this country by about 6 to 1, and Hispanics by a ratio of about 5:1. I can’t find a breakdown of welfare rolls by race, but looking at poverty rates I think there are probably more white people on welfare than anybody else.
Cabbies also fear Black customers will ask them to drive to bad areas where they might get robbed, and/or they will not be able to get another fare as readily.
Do census numbers include illegal immigrants? If not that would mean that the true number of Hispanic in the US is about 50% higher than reported by your cite. I don’t believe that is the case. Some cites say they will be counted in the 2010 census, but I don’t know if they were in 2000, or if they are included in these projections we read about.
Only if all illegal immigrants are Hispanic. And 20 million illegal immigrnats is the highest estimate I’ve ever heard; I’m more used to figures in the 10 million to 12 million range.
I don’t understand what you mean. I’m just basically asking you guys if you think any of them are true and then explain why in the most non-racist way you can think of, though that will be hard to do, especially if you admit that you think some are true, but you can believe in something and not be racist.
I’m not saying they do or do not abuse it. I’m saying it’s intellectually dishonest to say “more whites are on welfare than blacks” without using the actual data to make the comparison.
Eh. It wasn’t intended to be the final word on the subject; like I said, I couldn’t find data showing any breakdowns of welfare recipients by race (I suspect it’s because I’m busy, not because it doesn’t exist).
"“Probably quite difficult to find”? :rolleyes: Oh for heaven’s sake, people. The government itself has statistics out the wazoo on this very issue. To find them, you merely need to know what you’re talking about. For example, you need to know that the actual name of the government assistance program that most people mean when they say “welfare” is “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families”, or TANF.
To anybody possessing even that minimal amount of data (rather than content-free ill-informed speculations about the suppression of “politically incorrect” information), it is perfectly simple to find statistics about various characteristics of welfare recipients including their racial categories, such as this report from the Department of Health and Human Services:
See the table in the linked article for more detail. And ease up on the paranoid conspiracy theories next time, 'mkay?
There really isn’t any doubt that blacks tend to be poorer than whites, but the OP said “taking advantage of” welfare.
I guess the answer depends on if he literally meant “taking advantage of” as in to utilize; like “Sally takes advantage of the gym at her office.”
Or, if he meant taking advantage of as in cheating the system. I suppose like collecting welfare even if you have a secret income or something.
As pointed out, the first one is easy. The government loves keeping statistics. I still maintain that cheaters by race is a much tougher nut to crack, because, at best, you would have fraud statistics, but those would only count the people who got caught.
I’m wondering why the OP is focusing on stereotypes of “non-Caucasians”. Is the OP assuming that stereotypes against whites are all wrong, but there may be a grain of truth to stereotypes against other groups? Why limit the conversation to people of color?