African Stereotypes In Society

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Growing up in Africa, I always had the notion that most people were generally the same based on my observation of a few. Africans believe that Americans are ignorant, rich people who care about nothing but money. Then when I moved here I realized that was not necessary true. But it did not stop there; I was bombarded with every single type of African and African-American stereotype. Generalizations people constructed with information based on a few. Then I started to question who came up with these stereotypes and why. Stereotypes tend to hinders us more than we realize. We ignore the characteristics that separate an individual from the group. I believe we at times use stereotype to try and simplify the social world around us; it reduces the…show more content…
The movie industry for as long as I could remember portrayed African-Americans as being unintelligent, lazy, or violent people. As a result, people started believing and accepting these stereotypes. This is the same for women, who are physically attractive, who have been and are continue to be depicted as unintellectual and sexual beings. With this, I believe people stereotype a lot when problems or conflicts arise. Groups more than likely will define themselves based on who they are and who they are not. And the opposing group is often viewed in a very negative way, and this is where the stereotypes come…show more content…
What most people do not realize is that stereotypes, though at times negative, serve a positive function in our society. Most of the time when we stereotype it is because of past experiences. For example, John and Carrie are walking to a friend’s house when a block away they spot some men standing at the corner handing each other things. So John and Carrie turn around and go back in the house waiting for them to leave. They stereotype that it could be a drug deal going on. The reason they believed this was because not too long ago John was mugged at a street corner as he was on his way home from work by a group of men who were selling drugs.I realized that even my teacher in school stereotype to a certain degree. I find it very funny how some teachers unintentionally stereotype their students in the sense of who is likely to pass their class. For example, during my senior year of high school there were about two African Americans, three Caucasians and two Asian Americans in my STEM science class. At the end of the year my teacher started to tell me how the class did not meet her expectation. She, not realizing, had stereotype that the Asian Americans would get the highest grade in the class. To her surprise, that is not, what happened. Instead the African Americans had the highest followed by the Caucasians. The Asian Americans came last. She
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