Stereotypes Of Mental Poverty

The topic mental poverty is a mentality thats has been around for centuries. It is a man made condition and it has survived as long as poverty has lived on. However, mental poverty has almost always specifically affected minority groups or those who are considered of lesser existence. Today it predominantly affects minority groups such as blacks, hispanics and even native americans. ” Mental poverty : is categorized as an impoverished mind. "It is a way of living for some. It is a condition and state of mind where there are limited educational state resources and if there are educational resources, one choses to avoid them. It is a system that exist where the norm is ignorance and refusal . Refusal to change, to try and learn new better ways
of not only thinking but also putting thoughts into action. It is essentially a poor mind”(urban dictionary). "The term mental poverty embraces what it is for a person to be complacent or stuck in a mindset that inhibits a person from reaching for social, economic, and educational advancement. Predestined America is phrased coined to capture a sect of America that is stagnant in progressive economical and educational change. Mental poverty is a state of mind that is a product of unfortunate circumstances that commonly plague specific groups of people . This mindset seems to be in abundance in specific groups of people such as minorities. It is a typical mind set for minority groups it’s affects included a decrease human self esteem in one's culture,background, circumstance and self. My curiosity yearns to learn what causes a mental impoverishment in still developing adolescents and children. I believe such a component is significant to learn in order to know if our youths are being discouraged, due to a mindset, to stunt their own potential.
Important indicators that influence mental poverty are big staples in our society such as Entertainment role models, and economic status. How are minority children in our society being shaped by such staples in our society and how does this influence lead to mental poverty?
It’s truly about how we embrace the nature of our surroundings.
The media however, can sometimes implement a negative inclination to a particular group. What does this mean? The media and society can sometimes project negative influences( characteristic, trait, or stereotype) that nudges individuals to internalize such abstract influences to later develop and believe in them as reflection of their culture. The daily humorous stereotype publicized on T.V is an instruction for the underdeveloped minority youth on how to interact with society. The media sets a pattern for youth to later exhibit through their perspective and personal style that later leads to a pattern. In short, It’s an internalized point of view. That is reinforced by society's calamities such as poverty, child neglect, unsafe environments, unsafe influences, violence, drugs, prejudice, stereotypic media, and lack of visible role models. Children become what the media tells them to become, their just embracing the instruction that is most
visible.
“It's hard to understand the world of early adolescents without considering the huge impact on their lives of the mass media.
It competes with families, friends, schools and communities in its ability to shape young teens' interests, attitudes and values. The mass media infiltrates their lives. Most young adolescents watch TV and movies, surf the Internet, exchange e-mails, listen to CDs and to radio stations that target them with music and commercials and read articles and ads in teen magazines. “ The youth are constantly bombarded with the media's messages and they don’t know how to take it in. “The problem is that young adolescents often don't--or can't--distinguish between what's good in the media and what's bad. Some spend hours in front of the TV or plugged into earphones, passively taking in what they see and hear--violence, sex, profanities, gender, stereotyping and storylines and characters that are unrealistic. We know from research such as that conducted by George Comstock and Erica Sherrar that seeing too much TV violence appears to increase aggressive behavior in children and that regular viewing of violence makes violence less shocking and more
acceptable.” http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/4080/can-you-keep-the-media-from-being-a-bad-influence-on-your-child# The media affects all youths and it’s effects can be a bit worse on youths in impoverished areas. Youth in impoverished areas are not given enough parental guidance to help them distinguish and balance out the good from the bad that the media displays. The media teaches and molds our children’s moral compasses and personalities. Without the proper guidance children can become more harmful to themselves and society. According to “have you ever wondered…why most of the main characters in movies and television shows are white…why people of color are often cast in certain roles such as the maid, the gangster, the “model minority,” the supportive best friend, the terrorist…why certain products like cars or phones are marketed differently to specific racial or ethnic groups…why certain races and ethnicities are portrayed more often as lower class individuals in mainstream American media?”. In other words, our kids view everyday how they should interact in culture. The media constantly shows the minority that they are lesser in talent and intellectual achievement.The media's portrayal of race and culture are not just physical attributes it actually is a primary influence on people’s point of view. Race and culture affects how an individual looks upon the world and themselves. Furthermore, when the media mostly depicts minority races in a negative connotation roles it’s sets up a meaning for what it is to be black or Hispanic in America. Meanings that our youths began to follow and mold their own characteristics and personalities around.
The “Media plays an influential role in shaping how we think about and enact race in our everyday lives. In the United States and other Western Contexts, whites have historically been associated with superiority and privilege; people of color have historically been associated with inferiority and labeled as the "Other" in society.” “Our society has made progress in dealing with racial discrimination, but inequality and injustice still remain, and the media is a key site where these ideas persist.” These Ideas of what is to be a minority in society encourages youths to accept the values the media publicizes and seldom are these values complementing the minority culture rather they show indirectly and directly that minority children are not as successful, smart, special as the caucasian majority children. These media influences give children the idea that they are and can’t be as successful or good as they’d like to be. It's easy for the minority youth to fall victim to the media’s ideals of them because many lack the proper guidance to help them think otherwise.
Stereotypes can sometimes serve as publicized role model for the minority population. In where unguided youth can use such stereotypes of being the Gangster, thug, uneducated laborer, and inferior human being as role examples. Such publicized views influence the average teen that their not good enough to become what they dream. Such constant flow of demeaning influences cause mental poverty.
A state of mind that inhibits the normal development of human personality. (that’s social and mentally) in other words where stunting the progress of individualism by allowing a media that predominantly if not only displays minority cultures in negative lights and others not as much. However, the media just reflects a view which can later be digested as a point of reference for our young youths but why does such views become so easily internalized? Many hope stereotypes end in after laughing at the punch line but many do embed such stereotypes as a way of viewing the world that can lead to a certain mindset (Mental Poverty).Stereotypes are actually easily internalized because their commonly accepted through minority groups because they are constantly reinforced. Minorities often confuse their circumstance with their Identity allowing their negative environment to stunt their potential. Minorities such as blacks and Hispanics face a variety of adversities that reinforce the media’s stereotype. For instance, Minorities often see depictions of themselves through the media as gangsters, thugs, drug dealers, gang member. In fact, minorities are often associated with violence and rarely shown as positive role models and figures though, times are changing. Not only are these stereotypes shown on the t.v screen but up close and personal in their communities. Many minorities have gang members to look up to rather than teachers (who don’t understand their background or culture so in which they don’t relate.) What the media depicts is real to an extent and minorities see it’s realities on a daily basis and only see such a experience a way of identifying themselves. Whether it’s wrong or right popular beliefs are something we can believe in and our minority youth identify their way of life with popular beliefs.” According to Walton, the students that performed best in the later session were the African-American students who had studied in the non-threatening condition on the warm-up.“When the stereotypes are off the table both in the learning environment and the performing environment, black students did very well; and when black students had to both contend with the stereotype when they learned the words and when they had to recall the words, they were the worst performing group overall,” Walton said.” Students are believing in stereotypes and allowing such views to define them. As minority kids continue to allow stereotypes to shape them they perform poorly. Such poor results only further their beliefs in stereotypes and negative role models and lessen their beliefs in their own capabilities.

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/07/21/study-finds-stereotyping-affects-minority-learning/