I just wish they wouldn’t talk so loudly at movies.
I’m happy with my black friends except when it comes to reporting crimes. They have a cultural blind spot about that, talking about snitches and stoolies, etc. I know that they come from neighborhoods where reporting crimes makes you a target, but I wish it weren’t so.
They also probably come from a place where it doesn’t matter if they report the crime or not, nothing will come of it. I know many blacks and people who live in certain neighborhoods (like my husband and I) who know the police won’t do crap for us. Hell, my husband got attacked a few blocks from our house and the case was dropped before noon the next day. Reporting it was more trouble than it was worth.
I work in an industry where, unfortunately, stereotypes are perpetuated every day. And society believes it to such a point that I got attacked on this very board and accused of those very stereotypes. No matter how much of an exception you are to the stereotype there are still people who can’t wait to put you in that box.
You’re a porn star? HARLOT!
Uh, no.
Yeah… that was a joke.
About 10-15% of my students are ethnic Roma (gypsies), and they are discriminated against here in Eastern Europe in a way that was, at first, really shocking to me. It’s totally open and socially acceptable to talk about the dirty, lazy tsigani. For instance, one of my classes was absolutely out of control one day, so I went to talk to their class teacher. After I described the class, he laughed and said, “Do you have *tsigani * in America, Kyla?” Everything that goes wrong, it’s because of the gypsies. Twenty kids are rowdy, but the two Roma kids are the ones at fault, of course.
I was really naive when I started this job. I really thought that I could make a difference in these kids’ lives. I feel pretty depressed about it now…I almost wish I worked in a segregated school (any town large enough to have two schools segregates the Roma away from the ethnic Bulgarians and Turks, but my town is too small), because…they really do cause a lot of discipline problems. I understand the reasons for it - they come from a background of extreme poverty, very few of their parents are high school graduates (if any), and it’s expected that they’ll drop out of school at age 12 to get married and start having kids. There is no pressure to perform well academically and their parents don’t seem to care if they show up for school at all. The school system only provides free books up to 4th grade, with the result that no Roma kid in 5th grade and up has textbooks, so they can’t participate, so they while away the hours throwing spitballs at each other and distracting the rest of the class.
It just kills me.
I saw it at the time, but didn’t think you got “attacked”. Someone IIRC asked you as a factual question if you took recreational drugs, out of a genuine concern for your health (possibly, at any rate*), in response to a particular health issue that you’d complained of. This place being what it is, I shouldn’t have thought recreational drugtaking scored very high on most people’s evilometer. Nor’s the question offensive: you can ask it of me any time you like.
I admire your conduct, however. Many people in your position would have flounced off the board vowing loudly never to return, and (if they’d later had a change of heart) slunk back in a while later under cover of some sympathy-gathering likely story, pretending the flame-out had never happened, so good for you. 
(*Or possibly just being dickish, but then, who cares what a dick thinks?)
Actually, I got called a lot of names and was accused of a lot of bad behavior that wasn’t true. But please, let’s not get into it. I really didn’t enjoy that at all and don’t care to revisit it.
But do you get PO’ed at the people in your profession who aren’t the exception? (since that was the OP’s question)
Re: the OP
Regarding Aboriginal (to use your term) stereotypes, you may find this radio show episode a good listen:
**This American Life #113: Windfall / Act 1 - Reservations **
Alix Spiegel reports on an entire community that’s turned its back on easy money — for now. Nine years ago a native American community in Minnesota — the Mille Lacs band of Ojebway — built a casino. The reservation had been poor for a century, but soon they were the second biggest tourist attraction in the state, second only to the Mall of America. They had hundreds of millions of dollars … but of course, too much money can be as destructive as too little … and it’s unclear what to do with all the cash.
When did this happen?
FWIW, we’re glad to see you back.
Regards,
Shodan
What she said.
And it sticks even more in my craw when said folks defend negative stereotypes as part of a cherished culture. As if gangsta rappers and John Coltrane are somehow equally great. Or as if the real gift of the Jews is not 5000 years of learned tradition, but 20th century family psychodrama.
It makes me wish it wasn’t so, but no, I don’t get PO’d. I do wish they wouldn’t live down to negative stereotypes, but most of the time they don’t even realize they are doing it. Some people don’t have much self-awareness.
Sorry if I didn’t state that outrightly. I thought it was implied in my original post on the topic.
Femme gay guys were mentioned in this thread in post 14. Since this thread is about negative stereotypes, I think it’s safe to interpret that post as meaning that effeminacy in gay men is negative, an assertion I object to.
On a somewhat, but not quite, related note; one thing that makes me shake my head is the hypocrisy involved when women talk about how men are pigs when it comes to sex, for example adult entertainment establishments, yet, look at the way women act when in the presence of male strippers :eek: – if a guy acted that way toward a female stripper, he’d be arrested in the blink of an eye, for sexual assault.
for the record, this post wasn’t aimed at anyone in here, it was just the subject matter that reminded me of this pet peeve of mine. Oh, and I haven’t been to one of the aforementioned establishments in well over 3-4 years… (not that there’s anything wrong with going) 
S^G
While I didn’t read it that way, that might have a lot to do with the differences in our perspective.
However, the over-the-top, drama-queeny, cartoonishly feminine homosexual male is a stereotype I find as offensive as the date-raping, slack-jawed, sports-first fratboy. And seeing someone play either of those up does evoke a negative reaction in me.
Wow, being “cartoonishly feminine” is as bad as date rape now. Or is it date rape that’s no more offensive than being “cartoonishly feminine”?
Seriously, I’m trying to be charitable, but how am I supposed to read that statement?
There’s a “black clown” stereotype? “Class clown” yes… but I had no idea there was an American stereotype where the class clown is expected to be black or one where blacks are supposed to be clowns.
Sometimes it seems as if anything can be a stereotype. You get good grades except in Phys Ed? “nerd”. You get good grades, even in Phys Ed? “golden boy”. And so forth until infinity.