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ID#: 54383	Area: Posts	Submitted: 2009-11-02 16:15:44	Posted: 2009-11-07 03:01:01
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QDear 100 Hour Board,

What do you think of black people?

Stereotypes don't create themselves, though I admit some of them are certainly more accurate than others. In my experience many of the stereotypes are typically true (though with exceptions of course). Here, I will not detail which stereotypes I have validated by observation/experience and which ones I haven't, but instead I will curiously ask you to relate your own observations - since this is, after all, a site for my questions and your answers.

- A Little Racist

ADear racist,

Congratulations. You've been nominated for my Small-Minded Question of the Week.

-Sardonic.

ADear obviously,

Really?

I'm not going to answer your first question.

To comment on your second paragraph: Have you ever heard someone speak badly of your race? Did you say, "Oh, well, that is true for most [race] people, so it's okay," or did you think, "Hey, that's not fair. I'm not like that, and neither are my other [race] friends"?

I'm betting it's the second one.

-irascible

ADear A Little Racist,

I'm trying to figure out if this is serious or not. I guess I'm just not quite willing to believe that someone would think it's okay to ask this.

Here's what I think of black people: Their teeth often look whiter than mine and they always seem to have really clear skin. All of the black people I've been friends with have been pretty self-confident. And those are about all the generalities I can make.

Funny story: When Sauron started a blog in high school, he called it "The K___ K___ of Koolness" (I'm leaving two of the words blank because you can still Google the full title and find Sauron's real name). While he was working on it in a computer lab at school, a kid came up to him and asked what he was looking at. Sauron answered, "The KKK's website." The kid said, "Really? Are you a racist?" Sauron, reasonably assuming that this was not a sincere inquiry, jokingly said, "Yep." The kid said, "Me too!"

Moral of the story - Really, world? Didn't we get rid of this nonsense a few generations ago?

Now go think long and hard about what Jesus thinks of black people.

That's right. He loves them. A lot.

Sincerely,
Waldorf and Sauron

ADear Sounds like it,

Okay, stereotypes. What's the deal? Why are all these other writers so upset that you want to find out if stereotypes are accurate or not? Did you know that sometimes, just by believing something is true, you'll only see examples of when that belief is true? This is called confirmation bias. It's kind of cool to know about, but also kind of sad that humans are really irrational. For this reason, relying on personal experience is an inaccurate way to judge psychological phenomena.

Another social psychology principle that might help you understand why stereotypes are such a problem is stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is when a minority group performs worse when they're made aware of the stereotype about their group. For instance, when women are reminded that they are stereotypically worse at math than men, they perform worse on math tests than they would have if they had not had this reminder at all (women aren't worse at math necessarily, but there do seem to be more men at both ends of the extremes of intelligence).

So, in conclusion, it's good that you're acknowledging your racism, but please be aware of the detrimental effects your racism can have on others.

-The Supershrink

ADear A little,

You know, the funny thing with stereotypes is that it's only okay to laugh at them if you're making a stereotype about yourself. Case in point: stuff white people like. It's funny! But think of how uncomfortable we would feel if the makers of that site created "stuff black people like" (there is such a site, but it looks like they are not the same entity as SWPL, and I kind of feel uncomfortable reading it because I'm thinking "well not all black people are like that!"). Anyway. Something to think about.

-Whistler

ADear A Little Racist,

Sort of related story without a moral: in high school one of my band directors was this tiny, old, classy man from Arkansas. Even though he was just a little bit racist and more than a little bit sexist, everyone at our so-open-minded-our-brains-had-fallen-out arts school loved him to death. One of my gay best friends is black and was in the flute section, which was on the front row of the band room. Every time we played any song that hinted in any way toward Africa or old spirituals, even if the song was titled something really generic like "African Nights" or something, our band director would lean over to my friend and ask, "[Gay Best Friend], did your parents teach this to you growing up? What can you tell us about this song?" He was always totally serious. It was especially funny because this particular guy was perhaps the least stereotypically black guy that I ever knew, and he knew nothing more about black history or black culture than I did. So one day, my friend gathered up the entire band outside of the band room and explained to them his plot. When our band director came out of the room, my friend told him that he had a surprise for him and that he had taught the entire band a traditional African dance. He proceeded to stand in front of the group and make something up that sort of looked like a really stereotypical African dance, only we were all obviously faking it, but it made my band director's day. I went to visit him a few weeks ago, and he brought it up as a good memory. Oh, those were the days.

- The Black Sheep

AHey racist,

Let me provide some examples of the sort of abstract ideas in The Supershrink's excellent answer that I picked up in class this week.

The confirmation bias:
The stereotype: Asians are bad drivers.
You're cut off all the time by bad Caucasian drivers, and to you, they're simply bad drivers.
But when one Asian cuts you off, suddenly it's "Dang Asian drivers!!!"
When you have a bias like this, your mind selects and emphasizes things that fit into this bias, and you never notice when Asians are being good drivers.

Racism-as-hegemony:
Hegemony (for the purposes of this conversation) means an ideology put into action, which then reaffirms the original ideology. More specifically pertaining to our subject, you start out with a racist idea given to you by society—for example, let's say you live a few centuries ago when it was widely held that Women are mentally incapable of learning the art of writing. You might pick this idea up from the wide illiteracy of women in your town. But here's the thing: you perpetuate this stereotype through your actions. If you're a father, you don't let your daughters go to school, since it will be a waste of time. In many places, educating women was actually made illegal. Of course, the idea that women are unable to learn to write is clearly false now, but illiteracy among women perpetuated this sexist myth.

Moral of the story:
Even if black people are statistically less educated or poorer or more likely to wind up in prison or more likely to eat watermelon and fried chicken, that doesn't mean those traits are inherent in the race (they're not; they're culturally imposed through racism), and it certainly doesn't mean that you have any right to use a stereotype to make assumptions about people who belong to that race.

You say these "stereotypes don't create themselves," and that's true—you want to know who creates said stereotypes? White people.

Now snap out of it.

-Groucho, Harpo, and Karl

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