Preview

Stereotyping Bikers Essay Example

Best Essays
Open Document
Open Document
4636 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Stereotyping Bikers Essay Example
Abstract: The research topic “Negative stereotyping bikers” is to recognize why the majority of bikers are frequently exposed to negative views by people who do not ride motorcycles. I have compiled information from an independent survey of bikers from both males and females of diverse ages and backgrounds. A large portion of the research for this topic was derived from scholarly articles. Actually, the foremost reason for negative stereotyping is the media trying to capture an audience with action packed movies and press releases that have had a very negative influence on the public perception since the early 1950’s. In fact, most bikers are anything but social deviants. Most bikers are professionals who care about family and community, and ride to get a sense of freedom while raising money for a commendable cause.

Stereotyping Bikers: The Media’s Portray Vs. Reality
Many motorcycle riders both male and female have been portrayed as deviants in American society since the first bicycle was motorized in the early 1900’s (Dulaney, 2005). The media has played a large role in the publics’ perception the biker persona. The reality is most of the clubs and riders do it for the camaraderie and feeling of being on the open road. They also ride for charities and many other positive activities. Less than one percent of bikers and the clubs engage in miscreant behavior. The media has failed to expose all of the good things that a majority of bikers do for the community and continue to render an immoral public view.
Biker Club Beginnings
Most people have learned the little they know about motorcycle clubs from mass media (Harper & Moore, 1983). Pop-culture has depicted bikers and their clubs as vigilantes, loners, and rebels, giving the non-biker world an extremely distorted view of what being a biker is all about. A majority of these clubs are considered to be conventional and were brought together simply by brotherhood and for the love and pleasure of riding

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    One cannot take the system seriously and attempt to correct their actions if it seems that their actions are only being encouraged and welcomed, due to the fact that we are turning a blind eye. If a zero tolerance agreement is not enforced this will only reinforce the negative behaviors of the members of the Very Bad Biker Club. They will continue to disregard the rules and…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The importance of this study was to uncover whether or not our preconceived ideas and biases about bikers, and biker bars were true or not. We all had similar ideas and biases about bikers. We thought that they would be abrasive and possibly scary, that we would get dirty looks, that everyone would have tattoos, and that they would be tough and rough looking.…

    • 1125 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The author talks about the main features of their subculture. The main ones are brotherhood, the wearing of colors with the 3-piece back patch, and riding Harley Davidson motorcycles in group formation. These features hold symbolic meanings for the club members and serve important functions within the subculture. Through motorcycling, Enforcement Motorcycle Clubs provide their members with meaningful social participation and interpersonal relations, which re-establishes meaning and a sense of purpose in their lives. This book tells the stories of some club members to get their story on how they want the citizens to perceive what they do in their clubs. The author gives some information on how their political organization works. It consists of a president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, road captain, and sergeant-at-arms. Localized groups of a single, large motorcycle club are called chapters or charters, and the first chapter established for a motorcycle club is referred to as the mother chapter. The president of the mother chapter serves as the president of the entire MC, and sets club policy on a variety of issues. The Renegade Pigs, the Warthogs…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Due to the longevity of Harley Davidson’s existence they are faced with numerous challenges. Over the years it have become quite difficult for Harley Davidson to maintain their position of high profitability within the United States. The company that once marketed their motorcycles to higher end leisure riders which included a vast majority of baby boomers are now seeking ways to expand their offerings (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson, 2015). Problems continues to…

    • 866 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    * Keen motorcyclist – Harley Davidson Motorcycle Club member – rides most Saturdays with other Harley Davidson club members.…

    • 900 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Additionally, these three broad socioeconomic groupings run in conjunction with some lifelong Baltimore residents; particularly people I have met walking around the city or sitting in the park. These individuals would typically place themselves in one of the latter two groupings and would also characterize the most socioeconomically privileged grouping as being dominated by Johns Hopkins affiliates. Grouping riders into these three categories makes sense in the context of this paper, because it also helps emphasize how residents born and raised in Baltimore view the influx of the socioeconomically privileged associated with Johns Hopkins Institution. Throughout this paper, these groupings will be inherently understood from their clothing, their actions, where they get off the bus, and various other indicators. Using observation to classify individuals into one of these three groupings is an inaccurate and unscientific manner of characterizing people by their socioeconomic grouping; however, the conflicts that do emerge on the Charm City Circulator are not based on known socioeconomic status but instead on perceived socioeconomic status, therefore, this paper makes socioeconomic judgements that also run in conjunction with those of all individuals who ride the Charm City Circulator. Additionally, assumptions made regarding socioeconomic…

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Howell, J. (2010). Frequently Asked Questions About Gangs. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from The National Gang Center: http://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/About/FAQ…

    • 3904 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Essay On Stereotypes

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Stereotypes. Stereotypes play a major and huge role today in society negatively and positively. Stereotypes can form truthful and untruthful results that can mentally, emotionally and physically destroy a person, race or culture which we see today. Stereotype is a fixed over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people (Meclod). I chose to write on the topic stereotype because in society today we as humans stereotype one another all the time and do not realize it. Research have found that stereotype exist of different races, cultures, or ethic groups (Meclod). Today our world is so based off what the next person thinks and what they will say and do if something is not done a certain way and it bothers me. Don’t judge a book by its cover, no one should be judge for…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    New Bikers Subcultures

    • 13718 Words
    • 55 Pages

    intended to enable your noncommercial use of the content. For other uses, please contact the publisher of the journal. Publisher…

    • 13718 Words
    • 55 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Street Racing

    • 2692 Words
    • 11 Pages

    I am a street racer, and have been for 25 plus years. Now lets talk about a 15-17 year old kid who does not have the best judgment and make a traffic mistake, or a 17-25 year old who also makes a mistake, but should those traffic mistakes make him or her a convicted felon. Street racing goes on all over the U.S. and is so underground right now that you would not know it is even going on. We raced on the NEWS one mile from the police station. The NEWS reporters had been at that same police station the night before interviewing the cops and the cops said they did not have a street race problem in their town, or one that they knew off. We are not the ones on the NEWS lately, the ones on the NEWS today are the stop light to stop light high school crowd who have recently lost their lives answer a challenge from someone they do not even know. In the 50's the Santa Ana Police department came up with a solution to get street racers off the street and it turn into the NHRA. In the 70's LAPD also started up an organization to curb street racing, it is THE BROTHERHOOD OF STREET RACERS. Don Garlits, Shirley Mulldowney, Don The Snake Prudome, Larry Dixion, Corey Mac, (Corey Mac was street racing around Orange County and Larry was also doing it in SFV around the same time street racing in the Valley was getting out of hand) The founder of NHRA Wally Parks to name a few were all street racers, today they would be criminals.…

    • 2692 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Horses Impact On Society

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the last hundred years since the creation of the automobile, humans used horses less as a necessity of life and more in the sense of sports, entertainment, recreation, hobbies for the rich, and mainly life-styles of the poor. Along with economic impacts on culture, horses have also created a technological, chronemic, interpersonal, and psychological impact on human culture (Helmer 1991:175). Technology inspired by the horse helped to create the automobile, and today the carriage is used as a sporting event in harness racing (Helmer 1991:187). Horse people dedicate their lives and live everyday as if it were on repeat. Owning a horse sets horse people culturally at a different level than most others who don’t have to feed a horse twice a day or muck its stall (Helmer 1991:189). In equine sports and recreation, the popularity of the horse or trainer and affiliation with, contributes to the social aspect of culture within a “horse community” (Helmer 1991:190). Horses also contribute to the way a community’s psychological culture is affected. In a town with a dense population of horse people, one could find it particularity common that the town is for the most part full of down to earth, understanding, and kind individuals because of the ways in which they relate to their horses (Helmer…

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gang violence is a big problem in our society today. MW Klein, a gang researcher, says that gangs are an aggregation of youths who perceive themselves as distinct, and that are viewed as distinct by the community. Klein also states that the gangs call forth a consistently negative image of themselves through their actions (Klein). To those involved in gangs however, gang membership provided a youth means of attempting to consolidate their gender identities (Douglas). Most of the early American road gangs have historically been ethnically based. Early gangs were mainly Irish,…

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Regardless of your race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, all of us have experienced stereotyping at one time in our life. It is very clear that some are stereotyped far more than others. Why do certain groups feel the effects of this so much more? There are distinct differences between stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, we will be exploring the differences between them and how commonly they are used in social society today, with or without our own knowledge.…

    • 346 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this paper, we are going to examine the stereotypes used by others to define mostly what are of common or personal thoughts toward a certain group of people or a generalized characteristic that thought to be in a group’s type. “When a writer or speaker lumps a group of individuals together under one name or description, especially one that begins with the word “the” (the liberal, the Communist, the right-winger, the Jew, the Catholic, and so on), such labeling generally results in stereotyping” (Moore and Parker, 2007, p. 122). Stereotypes are not in any way based on the actual provable facts of these individual’s. In fact, our textbook defines stereotype in this manner, “is a thought or image about a group of people based on little or no evidence” (Moore and Parker, 2007, p. 122). This paper is to be in Rhetoric in style meaning that it “refers to the study of persuasive writing” (Moore and Parker, 2007, p. 118). In addition, this paper will include to further address and examine the stereotyping associated with Politicians, Tattooed persons, Feminists, Senior Citizens, and the positive and/or negative effects they may or may not reflect.…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Media Influence On Crime

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages

    in late 1990s there was moral panic that started after the stabbing of a fourteen-year-old schoolboy (Poynting, Noble & Tabar, 2001). The news channels were linking the killing to racially motivated gangsters. It was Lebanese immigrants that were being framed for the crime. This in turn caused the police to conduct “zero tolerance policing and a campaign of stop and search” of Lebanese background individuals (Poynting, Noble & Tabar, 2001). The gang members were shown as folk devils by the media. In the article The Enemy Within: The Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Moral Panic by Katz, K. it is stated that “The image of outlaw bikers created by this press coverage was almost entirely negative, presenting the bikers as savage monsters who presented the gravest threats to civilized society” (Katz, 2011, p.234). This image that is made by the media makes them look like freaks. Shootings and deaths by the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs cause there to be moral panics and the gangs to be perceived as folk…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays