What's the most ridiculous stereotype you've heard about your group?

In My Humble Opinion
21

[QUOTE=CanvasShoes]

[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]

Please. I hope this is a whoosh, because it is absolutely NOT true that being white somehow imbues a person with the ability to springboard to wealth and sucess with no normal adversities of life.

Appalachia? or better yet, just watch a Jerry Springer episode, any episode. Or “Cops” for that matter. Or the recent TLC program about Meth in a small town.
[/QUOTE]

Apparently your advantage was insufficient to springboard you up to READING COMPREHENSION. I omitted the “springboard…” stuff from my objection.

Being white is an indisputable advantage in America. Since this thread doesn’t deserve to be moved to the Pit, I will refrain from expressing my opinion on the level of intelligence, or lack thereof, needed to believe otherwise.

22

[QUOTE=Clockwork And Candy]
Just because I read an average of 7 novels a month it doesn’t make me intelligent or clever. My numerous posts here will testify to that. I just like to read alot is all.

Also… OMG, you’re black.
[/QUOTE]

Along those lines, just becuase I majored in math, I’m a human calculater. Just to let everyone know, majoring in math does NOT mean four years of arithmatic. In fact, as the years go on you actually work less and less with numbers. I don’t think I even owned a calculator my last year.

23

Jews are cheap and they control all the money in the world. No one taught my dad the secret handshake, and then he went ahead and married a shiksa.

Italians are violent, thuggish, and in the Mafia. I do have a cousin who always drove a Corvette but never had a job, and was busted for RICO violations, but I drive a Toyota and work for a living.

A woman with more than 2 cats is a lunatic witchlady doomed to spinsterhood. So far, this has been true, but I hope to disprove it at some point. At least the spinster part, anyway.

24

[QUOTE=Anaamika]

And of course white people, especially white men, certainly do have an advantage in this country. The “default” status just happens to be white.
[/QUOTE]

Even if I grant that historically that may have been the case, let me share the white male perspective.

Line up 100 qualified applicants for a job, a loan or anything else. Let’s say the 100 applicants represent the racial and sexual makeup of the country.

Each has a theoretical 1% chance of getting the job.

Eliminate the 50 women from the applicant pool…

Now, eliminate all black, Hispanic and Asian men from the pool. That takes another 15%, leaving 35 people.

If you’re on the outside, with a 0% chance of getting the job, white guys get all the breaks.

If you’re on the inside, your chance is still less than 3%.

So the “advantage” the white guy sees is 34 other people going after the same job.

I’m not going to insult anyone on the board and claim that being a white guy is tougher than being anything else. But 3% in an all-white-guy world doesn’t feel a lot better than 1% in a perfectly race/sex-neutral world.

25

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
A woman with more than 2 cats is a lunatic witchlady doomed to spinsterhood. So far, this has been true, but I hope to disprove it at some point. At least the spinster part, anyway.
[/QUOTE]

I consider myself a lunatic witchlady doomed to a happy marriage with another lunatic. :smiley:

26

Science fiction fans go to conventions dressed up he entire weekend as Spock and other Star Trek characters.

I’ve been to dozens of cons, and practically no one dresses in costume.

True, there is sometimes a masquerade. But science fiction costuming is not just throwing on an off-the-shelf Star Trek uniform and Spock ears: costumers make their own costumes from scratch and master costumers can spend hundreds, if not thousands, on a costume. It’s more like costuming for the stage or screen than dressing up as TV characters. See this page for some of the top-of-the-line worldcon costumes. Also, the masquerade involves skits, some of which are quite well done. None of the costumers would wear their costumes outside the masquerade, since they don’t want to get them dirty.

There are occasionally hall costumes – people wearing costumes while partying – but anyone is a Star Trek uniform will be considered, at best, a clueless newbie. Alas, whenever pictures are take at an SF con, it’s always the two people dressed as Spock and never ther 200 who are not.

Also, in most science fiction conventions, the media is an afterthought. They usually concentrate on written science fiction; the guests are almost always writers and SF artists. But con is really a big, three-day party, not nerds discussing Gandalf.

27

[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow]
In GQ there’s a thread about Blacks in the military special forces… and the stereotype about Blacks not being able to swim came up. Hell, some jackass running for public office made a similar statement this week. This stuff doesn’t really bother me as much as it makes me scratch my head.

[/quote]

In reading that thread the people offering the observation that blacks (and most specifically urban blacks) don’t tend to (as a group) be adept swimmers, weren’t linking it hypothetically to anything other than purely cultural, and possibly socio-economic factors. I have no idea whether it’s an accurate characterization of the cohort of black people in the miltary, but if it’s true it may be stereotype, but is it a “ridiculous” stereotype?

28

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
Science fiction fans go to conventions dressed up he entire weekend as Spock and other Star Trek characters.

I’ve been to dozens of cons, and practically no one dresses in costume.

True, there is sometimes a masquerade. But science fiction costuming is not just throwing on an off-the-shelf Star Trek uniform and Spock ears: costumers make their own costumes from scratch and master costumers can spend hundreds, if not thousands, on a costume. It’s more like costuming for the stage or screen than dressing up as TV characters. See this page for some of the top-of-the-line worldcon costumes. Also, the masquerade involves skits, some of which are quite well done. None of the costumers would wear their costumes outside the masquerade, since they don’t want to get them dirty.

There are occasionally hall costumes – people wearing costumes while partying – but anyone is a Star Trek uniform will be considered, at best, a clueless newbie. Alas, whenever pictures are take at an SF con, it’s always the two people dressed as Spock and never ther 200 who are not.

Also, in most science fiction conventions, the media is an afterthought. They usually concentrate on written science fiction; the guests are almost always writers and SF artists. But con is really a big, three-day party, not nerds discussing Gandalf.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps you go to different cons, but the ones I’ve been to over the past decade have been increasingly media-driven, bookless bores. At DragonCon in Atlanta a couple of years ago, there was one vendor who bothered to display his books. The rest of the vendors all specialized in media tie-in stuff.

And there were plenty of costumes as well.

29

[QUOTE=kunilou]
Even if I grant that historically that may have been the case, let me share the white male perspective.

Line up 100 qualified applicants for a job, a loan or anything else. Let’s say the 100 applicants represent the racial and sexual makeup of the country.

Each has a theoretical 1% chance of getting the job.

Eliminate the 50 women from the applicant pool…

Now, eliminate all black, Hispanic and Asian men from the pool. That takes another 15%, leaving 35 people.

If you’re on the outside, with a 0% chance of getting the job, white guys get all the breaks.

If you’re on the inside, your chance is still less than 3%.

So the “advantage” the white guy sees is 34 other people going after the same job.

I’m not going to insult anyone on the board and claim that being a white guy is tougher than being anything else. But 3% in an all-white-guy world doesn’t feel a lot better than 1% in a perfectly race/sex-neutral world.
[/QUOTE]

What kind of bullshit analysis is that? In an “all-white guy world” all the applicants would be white guys, the world WOULD be race and gender neutral, and the chance of getting the job would be 1%.

And even in YOUR world, with it’s unusual mathematics, 3% is THREE TIMES 1%, unless the multiplication rules are changed too. That is a BIG advantage.

By my math, with your scenario, a white guy would have a 3% chance against 0% for a woman or minority. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that’s an even BIGGER advantage.

I am also a white male. And I know for a FACT that I was not hired for one job because a black manager decided to hire a black, less qualified candidate.

It doesn’t really matter if you can come up with some particulars where being white is not an advantage. So can I. For instance, it would not have been to your advantage to be white at at the corner of Florence and Normandy during the Rodney King riots. So what? Being white will play out to your advantage far more often in your life than it will to your detriment.

30

John T, in retrospect I perhaps responded too strongly against your post. After all, you were talking about feelings and impressions rather than actual data.

So let me simply ask. Do you believe that being white is or is not to a person’s advantage in America?

31

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
…SciFi Conventions…
[/QUOTE]

Wow. That’s sounds quite different compared to the anime cons I’ve been to. At anime cons, it’s all about the media.

Also, why do you refer to cosplayers as “costumers”? Is that, like, a SciFi thing?

32

The one big misconception is that because I am gay that I am an arbitor or deisgn and fashion. If I made you over, it might go something like this.

33

Nurses do doctors constantly at the hospital in their sexy white shoes…their little white caps…their tight white dresses…
Nurses are too busy to do a doctor even if we’re married to one.
The porn industry has done nursing a huge disservice.
(We’d rather do Respiratory Therapists)

34

[QUOTE=astro]
In reading that thread the people offering the observation that blacks (and most specifically urban blacks) don’t tend to (as a group) be adept swimmers, weren’t linking it hypothetically to anything other than purely cultural, and possibly socio-economic factors. I have no idea whether it’s an accurate characterization of the cohort of black people in the miltary, but if it’s true it may be stereotype, but is it a “ridiculous” stereotype?
[/QUOTE]

I didn’t have a problem with the explanations in the thread because there were logical reasons tied to SES, where most Black people live, etc. why there appears to be fewer Black folks who can swim in the experience of the people who posted to that thread. But that mention brought to my mind other times that I’ve heard that “Black people can’t/don’t swim,” with the insinuation that there’s something biologically different that makes swimming out of the question.

I’d assume any healthy human being could swim, but trust me, I’ve been around people who were amazed when I told them that yes, I’m from the inner city and I can swim, and I have a good friend who is Black and a champion swimmer. I mean, the same socioeconomic factors impede Black kids from playing a lot of golf, but almost every Black corporate guy I know plays golf. I’ve never heard anyone say “Black people can’t play golf,” and this was even before Tiger Woods.

35

[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
John T, in retrospect I perhaps responded too strongly against your post. After all, you were talking about feelings and impressions rather than actual data.

So let me simply ask. Do you believe that being white is or is not to a person’s advantage in America?
[/QUOTE]

I think it is.

However, I can’t answer for Kunilou. :wink:

36

[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow]

I’d assume any healthy human being could swim, but trust me, I’ve been around people who were amazed when I told them that yes, I’m from the inner city and I can swim, and I have a good friend who is Black and a champion swimmer. I mean, the same socioeconomic factors impede Black kids from playing a lot of golf, but almost every Black corporate guy I know plays golf. I’ve never heard anyone say “Black people can’t play golf,” and this was even before Tiger Woods.
[/QUOTE]

You swim & play golf! Holy crap son, you must have a wizard in the wood pile! :wink:

37

That if you’re mentally ill, you’re putting on an elaborate act.

That if you’re mentally ill, you’re really just a huge attention whore.

That if you’re mentally ill, you’re simply lazy and using that excuse to get out of ________.

That if you’re mentally ill, you are demon possessed. Oh wait, Bob says this one’s true. :eek:

38

[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
So is your user name an ironic response, then, or is there some other reason for it?
[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re trying to say here. Spongebob+momhood=Spongemom. Short, simple, easy to remember name. What’s that got to do with my post? Honestly asking.

To the post after yours: Yes, my son likes Spongebob, and I do too. He watches, I collect trinkets and stuff.

39

[QUOTE=Spongemom]
I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re trying to say here. Spongebob+momhood=Spongemom. Short, simple, easy to remember name. What’s that got to do with my post? Honestly asking.

To the post after yours: Yes, my son likes Spongebob, and I do too. He watches, I collect trinkets and stuff.
[/QUOTE]

Your post was about the misconception that single mothers “sponge” off society. Your s/n is “Spongemom”. I’m pretty sure that’s what Skald was referencing.

40

When I was 120 lbs and a 34DDD, a lot of people assumed I was stupid. And then when it became clear that I wasn’t stupid, they assumed I was a bitch.