Race Is Stereotypes

Racial stereotypes have always been a serious issue in society. The stereotypes impact many aspects of our life. We more or less get carried away by our perceptions toward race, and judge people in a certain frame unconsciously, as Omi set forth in In Living Color: Race and American Culture. Taken by Hilary Swift, this photo presents an African American woman, waiting for a bus that can take her to the Kitchen of Love, a food pantry that located in Philadelphia aiming to feed people suffering from hunger, where she volunteers. It happens in dawn so it’s still dark outside. The surroundings give us an idea that it should take place in a black neighborhood (Stolberg “Black Voters, Aghast at Trump, Find a Place of Food and Comfort”). The woman is staring at the direction where the bus is coming, with a smile on her face. As a photojournalistic image, this photo is aiming to portrait a kind and helpful African American woman, however, does this photo really “positively” portrait an African American woman?

Race and ethnicity are two things that have been around since before the colonist journeyed over to America. But what do these two words mean? It is easy for people to confuse them and think that the two definitions can overlap. Race, in sociological terms, is a social concept. The majority of race is concerned with biology and the physical characteristics or hereditary traits a person might have. For example this could be skin, hair, or eye color, or bone structure. Ethnicity is cultural factors that a person would be able to conform to. These factors are shared by people in the subgroups and can be accepted or rejected. Examples of this would be languages, religion, food, and nationality.

Although Racial Stereotype is something we experience daily, people should not be quick to judge or make conclusions based solely on skin color. Not every stereotype is true. Staples introduces himself by using the words “first Victim” by doing so he sets a picture in the mind of the reader that when he came up behind the lady on the street, something was going to do happen to her. He is faced with different stereotypes that he experiences daily from different races. Throughout the essay Staples makes the argument that racial stereotype is wrong .Staples explains his thesis through narratives of incidents in his life. He gives details of numerous accounts of people mistaking him for a thief or mugger.

Both race and ethnicity are both socially constructed and are a cultural category instead of a biological reality. Race and ethnicity are contrasts between people that we perceive. Race is nearly impossible to exactly define someone as white or black because people are so many different shades of color which makes everyone unique. Ethnicity is socially constructed because the boundaries that make someone a particular ethnicity are fairly flexible. Both of these concepts are used to describe differences between humans and ways that people are identified in society.

Race and ethnicity are the occasionally have been used interchangeably. Race is described as a person’s physical appearance such as skin color, eye color, hair and many other biological traits and characteristics. Race mainly refers to the differences in skin color in the contemporary world. When we say that person is fair skinned or is black we are referring to the race of that person. Ethnicity is the cultural aspect of a an individual or a group such as the nationality of the person, the language they use to communicate, their descendants , the particular region they inhabit for example American, African, African Americans, etc. In a nutshell race is an overview of how you look and ethnicity is the social and cultural aspect of grouping you are born into.

Ethnicity is groups of individuals with the same common interest and beliefs. They speak the same language and they also have shared characteristics such as their culture. Ethnic groups look at themselves differently during certain periods of time. They are often times defined by being stereotyped. Reid Mandell, B., & Schram, B. (2012).

One very common stereotype would be race or ethnicity. This one can by far go both ways, a common trait for this stereotype would be if you're black you must be good at sports or if you're a white teenage girl, you must like a starbucks. Grouping an individual like this could make someone feel very low and not highly of themselves if they can't hit a three or throw a ball around. As mentioned on simplepsycology.com a study was done on ethnicities, “White Americans, for example, were seen as industrious, progressive and ambitious. African Americans were seen as lazy, ignorant and musical.”(Katz Braly,

Humanity is a very terrible thing sometimes because in the "what would you do" videos (actors doing stuff to see how people react or what they would do in certain situations) people use racial stereotypes, gender, or if it even affects them to help a situation or not. Sometimes they only do it to feel good about themselves because they are doing something good.

James M. Henslin defines race as “a group of people with inherited physical characteristics that distinguish it from another group” (2014). Meanwhile, ethnicity “refers to cultural characteristics” (Henslin, 2014). The difference mostly relies in a similar argument to the classic nature versus nurture argument. Race is what a person genetically inherits. Whether it may be skin tone or anatomical features, they are dictated by something outside of a person’s personal preference. An example of race is that a person could be caucasian or latino. They do not get to choose, they are simply given the traits of that race through their bloodline.

In a script from the Great Divides by Kimmel & Aronson, “people of color face far more suspicion from police than do whites, and favored male professor’s benefit from evaluation, that they are smarter and knowledgeable while comparatively favored female professors tend to be evaluated as nice” Kimmel (2014).

The purpose of the study was to see if people will end up believing the fake stereotype that we told them and if it will end up effecting their performance when completing the survey. The two independent variables were Gender (male vs female) and Survey Type (if they were told the stereotype vs not told), both independent variables were between-subjects factors. The dependent variable was the time they took to complete the survey, which was measured in seconds.

In Max Shulman’s, “Love is a Fallacy”, the author conveys various stereotypes and reveals prevalent fallacies in both genders, men and women. Shulman presents an anti-women theme by writing common deceptions based on women’s personality, but also indicates an anti-man presence, as seen throughout the short story. Shulman states, “The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly” (Shulman 366). The quote seen above exposes the stereotype in which the “perfect” woman is needed to marry highly rated men, such as the lawyers observed by the protagonist.

I conceal my face with layers of makeup hoping that half a bottle of BB cream will be enough to make me as flawless as Kylie Jenner look on the cover of Seventeen magazine. I use innumerous acne medications, aspiring to be as unblemished as the girls in the Clean and Clear commercials. I reject bags of M&Ms and fudge brownies thinking that my sacrifices will make me “love my body” as much as the emaciated Victoria Secret models love theirs (see appendix A). I routinely shave my legs and armpits and pluck my eyebrows with fear of becoming the hairy woman the media deems horrendous. I do everything, yet feel like I am nothing. Nothing compared to the beautiful women pictured on television, magazines, and

Some positions that are related to this issue are various types of students depending on their learning level at school such as special needs, naturally gifted students and academics. Other beliefs such as different skin color stereotypes can relate to the issue in this clip. There are stereotypes for example; all black people are good at basketball, all asians are good at math, gingers have no soul, etc. None of these are actually proven facts. I believe that this could really discourage a person if they are headed to some event or a meeting and they find out that you are the only person with a certain skin colour. You might think to yourself, others might have a certain expectations for you or randomly judges

According to NYDailyNews, the average American watches more than five hours of television every day. Through these television programs, people are exposed to many issues in the representation of women, children, gender, sexuality, and race. Racial stereotypes are still evident today, even though times have changed since the early 1900s. They provide negative or false assumptions about a variety of groups, as well as ideas that do not necessarily pertain to every person. Fox Tv’s show Glee is an accurate portrayal of the many racial stereotypes that are apparent in today’s society. Glee offers viewers a complex construction of race that both perpetuates negative racial stereotypes for humorous purposes and attempts to disrupt stereotypical notions of “token” characters.