Racial Stereotypes: A Case Study

An experience I have picked for this assignment is something that happened to me when I was in high school. I was minding my own business standing around when an African American student who I knew and was in the same grade as me approached me. He asked me, "What kind of Asian are you?" I replied saying that I was Vietnamese. He then told me that he thought I was Chinese, and then asked, "Aren't you all the same? What's the difference?" I then explained to him the cultural differences and practices between each type of Asian. He then said, "Still all the same to me." At this point, I was annoyed, and slightly angry. I said to him then, "Aren't you blacks all the same to since all of you commit crimes?" I obviously didn't mean what I said, but
I said it in the heat of the moment of being angry. He then called me a racist, and I said he was being as racist as well, but he was denying it. I saw no further point in conversing with him, and just walked away ignoring him.
The point that this is helping me make about race relations in America is that stereotypes are still prevalent today in American society towards different ethnic groups. I will include this in my research article, as part of my research article is about stereotypes, particularly towards Hispanics. I want to address how stereotypes are formed, portrayed, and labeled on others. Either negative or positive stereotypes, why do they exist, and is positive stereotype an oxymoron? Why did this person feel the need to come up to me, and randomly ask this?
Was his question genuine, or was he simply trying to insult me? Why did I react the way I did when I got annoyed and l responded with a negative racial stereotype? This is a common problem with race relations in American, as say for example, African Americans like to make stereotypical jokes towards Caucasians and everyone laughs, but when Caucasians make stereotypical jokes towards African Americans, everyone berates the Caucasians. Why do we make these jokes, why are some acceptable, and some are not, why is does this double standard exist? How do people feel labeling stereotypes towards others, and how do others feel having stereotypes labeled on
them? The Language of Prejudice by Gordon Allport specifically talks about labels and stereotypes. One of Allport’s main points in his writing, is that he believes that there is no arbitrary classificatory label can refer to the whole of a man's nature and character. Each label we use, especially those of primary potency, distracts our attention from concrete reality. Even names can act as labels as well as a name can denote someone's ethnic background by default. These labels or names leads to prejudgments of personal attributes, and an individual is fitted with the prejudice ethnic category, and not judged in his/her own right. As Allport has stated, social categories and labels are neither inherently dangerous nor are they inherently demeaning. Rather, they are simply labels to denote what a person is in order to understand them in an easy, simple, and efficient manner. The classification of people into labels and groups allows people to understand others with the use of one to a few characteristics and traits. We use someone's gender, age, physical appearance, or status to classify them. This is how stereotypes form, as a stereotype is defined as "a cognitive structure that contains the perceiver's knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about some human group", and our social classifications reside within the content of your stereotypes. Stereotypes are useful in the sense that they are vital for simplifying the process of perceiving someone for what they are. They provide the perceivers with just enough information to predict and structure what someone else is like. This is how first impressions are made as well. Take an interview, for example, how you dress, how you look, your posture, your facial expressions, already alone gives the other person an idea of what kind of individual you are, without any words being uttered. That is the benefit of stereotypes as we are able to rely on social categories to instantly form a quick impression on a person. It gives people predictive insight, based on the information associated with their social categories. It is in our nature as humans to have the psychological tendency to use stereotypes. It is our method of perceiving information by giving us a quick description of what something is to us when we see it or hear it. These descriptions, however, can be negative and the extent to which how negative it can be varies, depending on the situation. Not all stereotypes are equal to the extent that the groups they describe are unequal. Referring to what was stated earlier, we use someone's gender, age, physical appearance, or status to classify them, and if we see their physical appearances and social status to be different from ours, we usually associate them with negative connotations. Stereotypes today on minorities in America have been formed and perpetuated by the predominantly Anglo Saxon government throughout history. Through the use of propaganda, the media, politics, etc., racial minority groups in America carry various stereotypes with them.
Some of these racial stereotypes are "positive" and some are negative.
I put positive with quotation marks, as I view positive racial stereotypes as an oxymoron, and are actually negative stereotypes in of itself. For example, there is the stereotype that African Americans are athletic, or Asians are intelligent. These may sound like positive associations, however, if someone does not fit this "positive" stereotype, they are questioned by their peers of their ethnic identity. "Are you really Asian?", "Are you sure you are black?", is what you would hear if you were an Asian who did not perform academically well, or an African American who did not excel athletically. These expectations exert a social pressure on minorities and do more harm than good. Granted, racial stereotypes are wrong, but we cannot ignore the fact that some are worse than others. For negative stereotypes, some are more worse than others depending on the situation, as what determines how negative a stereotype is, is how much it intends to disvalue a person/group. The negative stereotype of Latinos being lazy, or Asians being asocial sound nowhere near as derogative as "all blacks commit crimes". This discrepancy of some stereotypes in certain minority groups being much more derisive than others lies in the fact that certain minority groups in history have been more oppressed than others. These negative historical associations with these groups have been culturally imbued into American society, and
contributes to the mistreatment of a certain group compared to other groups. Negative stereotypes that have been branded throughout history, undermine the societal and cultural value of minority groups, and continue to hinder racial relations and equality in America. Negative stereotypes types will always exist in America. Everyone, no matter who they are, have preexisting knowledge from stereotypes. It is our nature for our minds to quickly use short words or descriptions to define something immediately, as it is an efficient method for us to process information. We learn these terms or definitions to define someone, particularly minority groups through the media and society. We are exposed to these stereotypes early in our lives, and we carry them with us throughout our lives life. and they will continue to be culturally transmitted throughout generations.