Minority Groups and Stereotypes Stereotyping

Minority Groups and Stereotypes

Stereotyping of racial groups is common throughout the world. Positive stereotyping helps even the non-deserving members of the racial groups. Negative stereotyping has even a worse effect. The negative stereotype image holds back the progress of the community and creates disillusionment and despair among the racial group. This 'guilty until proven innocent' attitude has negatively affected the American blacks' progress, their job opportunity and their integration as an equal member of the American Society. American blacks have to work harder to break the taboo of the negative stereotype.

Awareness of the unconscious stereotyping may help in reduction of the affects on black Americans, but in the end only hard work and progress of American blacks in the non-stereotype areas will finally kill the negative stereotyping.

INTRODUCTION

If you happen to be a young bearded Pakistani carrying a backpack in the underground 'tube' station' in London, your chances of being stopped and searched as a potential bomber are close to cent-percent. No doubt that young British born Pakistanis would be extremely annoyed at this stereotyping.

When IRA was waging a war against the British, it was convenient to keep an eye on the Catholics from Northern Ireland instead of watching both Catholics and Protestants as potential bombers. The truth is that Protestants were not setting up bombs in English pubs and from purely a logistics point it did make sense to isolate a smaller group for specific watch. Passengers profiling of Muslims and Arabs coming into U.S. is an indignity suffered by passengers with Muslim names. Very soon it would be like stereotyping when very ethnic Arab would be Osama. The war on terrorism is creating new stereotypes all over the world.

If you need to find a stupid-character for a joke a dumb blond would do. In India you can use a Sikh; Irish are the replacement for the character in England. It is a fact that we have created stereotypical images of different ethnic groups. A Chinese friend of my father gleefully described how he scared away six large Frenchmen in a sleazy French clubs area by adopting a Karate posture, all Chinese 'knew' Karate then.

Stereotyping has been practiced all around the world and some of the stereotyping is so pleasant that it does not harm the ethnic group. 'Asians are good at Mathematics stereotyping will probably be appreciated by most Asian students apart from the ones who are poor in the subject and are told that 'but Asians are so good at Math's.

My ethnic group is 'black'. American-Blacks have been in United States for almost as long as the Caucasians but unfortunately most of the initial blacks came into United States, not in search of the Promised Land, but as forced labor bound in chains to work as slaves on plantations and laborers in other areas. Not all American-blacks, of course came into United States as slaves, many came after the abolition of slavery, but the black identification is from the days of slavery. The stereotypical image of the black population still has the remnants of their 300 years history in United States. This long period of history means that American blacks are now recognized as Americans and no one talks about sending them 'back home' like racist parties in Europe demanding to send back the Turkish-German, Algerian-French and British-Indians back to their Parents or grand parent's countries.

Black Americans are well distributed throughout United States. Most live in urban areas. Throughout the history of United States American blacks have been the subject of discrimination against them. The result is that even now when the laws forbid any kind of discrimination American blacks racial group is at the bottom rung of prosperity.

Majority of American Blacks are poor, living in urban slum, a significant proportion of American blacks used to leave school without any diploma due to social problems of poverty. The end of discrimination laws has helped in a positive change in the state of American Blacks. American blacks are now working as lawyers, university professionals, doctors, engineers and in all major professions. The present and last Secretaries of State belong to American-black racial group. The negative stereotypical image of American-Blacks has however not recognized the progress made during the last 40-50 years and overall negative stereotyping continues to this day.

On the positive stereotype side American blacks are considered good sportsmen/women and excellent in music and performing arts. This positive image has helped American- blacks thrive in these professional areas. It therefore follows that the negative image in other field is hindering progress of Black Americans and keeping them trapped into the cycle of poverty, crime and drugs.

Literature on Black Studies and Stereotyping

Black Study is one of the well recorded areas of American History. The problem is that the views on both sides are not unbiased. White historians may like to brush everything under the carpet and pretend that it did not happen or only acknowledge parts of the suffering of American blacks. The black historians often appear emotionally involved and an unbiased version is very difficult to find.

Gates, 1991] points out that the subconscious and subtle prejudice built over the years is the greatest obstacles to black progress today. Negative stereotyping has the effects which are not easily understood. By stereotyping one basically closes his or her eyes and the person is not judged. In stereotyping, if a person does not fit the stereotype, people look for excuses for this departure from the stereotype. The result is that a rightfully entitled person is denied many opportunities and the psychological effects on the individual and the stigmatized group are enormous.

Another stereotype about blacks is that they steal. This perception means that as soon as a black person walks in, the clerk follows him around, while someone not stereo typed as a thief is left on his own. If one is only watching blacks entering the store and not others, those are the ones that will be caught, the others will go unnoticed. We also need to remember the other statistics that most of the shoplifting is done by the store staff. Majority of blacks and other races enter and leave the stores without stealing but the stereotyping, the prying eyes, the knowledge that one is being watched more closely than others is certainly demoralizing and can even incite enough anger in a young person to live up to the stereotyping. Gates (1991) argues that the self-fulfilling prophecy works this way, the treatment leads to stereotyping and vice versa.

Gates (1991) cites examples of cases where successful blacks have to work hard to break that stereotypical image and some of them cut ties with their black roots, their family and hometown to live in a state of 'Pseudo limbo'. "It seems that in order to succeed a black person has to accept majority's norms and leaves 'blackness' behind.."

Feagin & Sikes,1994) describing the stereotypical image of blacks as poor or criminals cite example of Debbie Allen, a movie star and television producer, recounting a painful experience with discrimination at a Beverly Hills jewelry store. A white clerk, possibly stereotyping Allen as poor or criminal, refused to show her some jewelry. Allen was so incensed that she used the incident as the basis for an episode on a television show

Meier (1998) points out that generalization are unfair and the prejudices of stereotyping lead to discrimination without a basis. He gives an example that if a car dealer believes that an American blacks cannot afford cars, he first demands a higher down payment from a black American than other racial groups, Even if the American blacks agrees to the higher down payment, that does not change the dealer's stereotyped image as to him this black American is unique or lucky. If someone else can not pay the required down payment it does not create the stereotype for the next person but even if the black American can pay the down payment, it is merely regarded a departure from the rule. The stereotyping does not break and soon one black American would come in who fits the image and reinforces the self-fulfilling prophecy to continue the cycle.

Meier (1998) cites another stereotyped image that blacks are lazy. He argues that in order to break this stereotype image one has to work twice as hard as others. If a person from a non-stereotyped lazy group comes in late and cites a reason, no one would say a thing, if a black person comes and tells the same reason for being late; the laziness stereotype will only be reinforced.

The result is that because of these stereotyping the person from the stereotyped group has to work harder to avoid being stereotyped. Meier (1998) states that while blacks may fear being stereotyped, whites often fear being called racist and often bend backward to be nice. The difference in his opinion is that for a person from the majority it is not a constant threat while being a 'stereotype black' may hinder progress.

Stereotyping effects not only other people image of an ethnic group but it can also influence the self-image of that group. [Tatum, 1999] describes a discussion with her children while driving them to school.

A drove past a Black teenager running down the street." Why is that boy running?" my son asked. "I don't know," I said absentmindedly. "Maybe he stole something." I nearly slammed on the brakes. "Why would you say something like that?" I said. "Well, you know, in the city, there's a lot of crime, and people steal things," he said. He did not say "Black people," but I knew the cultural images to which he was responding.]."

The stereotyping of blacks as good in sports has often been at the expense of negative image in other areas. The blacks were considered a 'race of physical bodies (athletes) without minds or spirits' [Entine, 200]. Breaking this stereotype image to prove themselves in areas requiring high intelligence has required blacks to work harder than usual.

Ruiz, 1990] criticizing the stereotyping claims that "Stereotyping of American blacks is so pervasive and so deeply ingrained that many blacks actually believe the false images imputed onto them by majority group members. Believing these false images ultimately leads to self-rejection. Hare [In Ruiz, 1990] supports the notion that blacks are successfully socialized to internalize negative messages about themselves. Other blacks believe that what is said about the group is true, but they view themselves as exceptions. "

Ruiz, 1990] also argues that stereotyping, poverty, segregated and disorganized communities, low quality education, discrimination and poor health care are also affecting the mental health functioning.

ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS

It is clear that black community in United States has considerable stereotyping problem. It is a credit to black community that despite all the hurdles placed in their development, Americans blacks have been able to progress to the extent they have. The present day anti-race discrimination regulations have required considerable struggle on the part of blacks and other members of human community. Repealing of segregation laws, laws for equality of races have opened new opportunities for development for American blacks. The dream of Dr. King that one should be judged on the content of one's character and not the color of one's skin will remain a dream until the stereotyping mentality changes to let people be given an opportunity to develop without the stigma of the stereotypes attached to their race.

Three hundred years of black history has left them on the bottom rung of prosperity. The poor people every where in the world, without any regard to color of their skin, are busy in the battle of survival. Petty crime, finding refuge in drugs and other baggage of poverty is common among all poor sections of the society throughout the world. The problem is that in United States, the poverty has been associated with the black race and the stereotypes of poverty are holding the blacks American from coming out of the shackles of poverty.

Recent floods in New Orleans showed the effect of a natural disaster on the poor sections of New Orleans community. Unable to pay for the hotels away from the disaster zone, the poor chose to stay in the last resort refuge of the dome and other places declared as refuges. The mismanagement of disaster relief compounded the misery of these refugees to the extent that water and food shortages created panic among the refugees. The criminal elements among the poor deemed it correct to break into the shops and get food and water among other things from the supermarkets. The scene is what one would expect from any disaster affected poor community. The problem is that vast majority of the New Orleans poor were blacks (like in all other regions of United States), they could not escape the troubled area and were made to suffer for their poverty. While overwhelming majority just pleaded for 'Help' in front of the TV cameras, the tiny minority of looters reinforced the stereotypical image of black Americans. The media openly accused the government of mismanagement and one reason cited for the negligent behavior was that vast majority of the affected were blacks.

United States is a rich country, richest in the whole world. We go in all corners of the world to help the poor, impose our version of democracy on Iraq and Afghanistan and other countries and spend billions and trillions on these noble endeavors. The plight of poor, the blacks, the Hispanics however goes unnoticed. The truth is that America has failed to develop a social support system for the unemployed, the sick and the poor, while this type of system work across the border in Canada and also in Western Europe. The reason of this negligent behavior might lie in the racial origin of the poor.

There is an urgent need to pay attention to the plight of the poor, better housing, and investment in upgrading the urban slums, better health care and creation of job opportunities will help break the cycle of poverty. Poverty alone can be blamed for many of the social evils such as broken families, high divorce rates, uncared and unloved children, drugs and violence. If America does not invest in improving the lot of the poor it will just be compounding the social problems resulting from the vast differences among the rich and poor.