Stereotypes

In case you haven't heard enough from me already in a short amount of time, here I am again to discuss stereotypes. First, I would like to start with a quote by Walter Lippman.

In his book, Public Opinion, Lippman wrote that "Each of us lives and works on a small part of the earth’s surface (and) moves in a small circle. ...Of any public event, that has wide effects, we see at best only a phase and an aspect."(Walter Lippman, Public Opinion, Part III. Stereotypes, 1922)

How I took this, is that each of us only has a limited perspective on things because we travel in small herds of people that are like us. Whenever there are people outside of our circle, we lump them into a generalization in order to classify them as something. Whether it is the brains, the jocks, the bitches, or the goths, we take what they look like and how they act and put a certain label on them even whenever each of them has their own talent and attributes.

One stereotype that is overplayed in the media is that of African Americans being dangerous. One example of this that really sticks out in my mind is whenever Hurricane Katrina hit, there were two pictures of people looting stores; one of a black man taking bread and one of a white man and woman taking soda and potato chips. Under the african american's picture it stated that he was "looting" while under the white couple's picture it said that they were taking provisions. It just goes to show that the media enforces stereotypes of white supremecy and makes people think that african americans are always doing something wrong. I think Cynthia Tucker on Bill Maher said it best:

"Black people in this country, are still disproportionately poor. It is also impossible to talk about what happened in New Orleans without some white conservatives focusing on the looting, the crime, instead of focusing on the vast majority of poor, black people who were law-abiding, who were frightened themselves."

Bill Maher also stated this about the post 9/11 look at our citizens:

"There's a friend of mine who lives in New Orleans, is black, and I wrote down exactly, word for word, what she said, because I think it bears repeating. She said, 'After 9/11, I was American. Now I'm back to being black.' And I think among the feathers in George Bush's resume is that I think he has lost a whole generation of black people who might have felt that way after 9/11, and now are like, 'You know what? I can't believe I started to buy into that bullshit.'"

It just goes to show that the media is a gatekeeper of stereotypes and makes sure to keep enforcing it, especially under the current leadership our country has. The media and the goverment like to play up fear so that we feel that we need them to guide us, but in the end the fear just leads to hate and then we all lose out.

Time for class, I'm sure I'll have to revisit this later.