African American Stereotypes

All around the world, people are judged and stereotyped on a daily basis in society. As an inevitable action in a typical day, it is in our very nature to make an assumption about someone based on their appearance and personal beliefs. The effects stereotypes have on people when thrown upon them can vary depending on their cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Stereotypes can be defined as a general idea or perception of a group of people. As humans, when we see multiple examples of personalities and actions shared between similar people, we then think that “they” are all like that. Thus, the creation of stereotypes. Since they create certain generalizations, they can often be harmful because they don’t always pertain to every individual who belongs …show more content…
Vedantam supports his claim by comparing results from various types of tests by the race of the tester and the testee. He states, “...experiments have found that reminding African Americans and Latinos about their race before administering academic tests… can hurt their performance”(1). This statement shows that those who were reminded of this did worse than those who weren’t. This is significant because helps to support the negative effect explained. The author later discusses that stereotypes can act as a negative threat not only to blacks and Latinos, but to people of several genders and ethnicities in foreign countries all over the world. However, he fails to talk about if and how other major racial groups, such as Asians, are negatively affected, leaving the reader to question whether or not all group are negatively affected. In a TED Talk called “The Danger of a Single Story”, the narrator, Chimamanda Adichie, talks about her life and personal connections to stereotypes. Coming from Africa to America, she states that was treated with, “a kind of patronizing, well-meaning, pity”. Chimamanda describes how she is stereotyped by her roommate and professor and that …show more content…
Because my school is heavily populated by Latinos, stereotypes actively exist almost constantly. Many students probably remember Latinos as the ones that are here illegally and are always getting arrested because of examples they might see on the nightly news. But this is not a case for every person of a Latino background. Being of Asian descent, most people think that I am just naturally smart, and that I simply don’t need to try to succeed. Many also seem to think that Asians can only succeed in school and music, and not athletics. This, however, is completely false. From my personal experience and findings of others that are also Asian, I have come to the conclusion that many Asians just have a desire to try their very hardest to strive for success, and are expected to always try their hardest. So when I am reminded that I am Asian and that “all” Asians are smart, my ability to perform is not dragged down. Instead, it is elevated. This ultimately acts as an example of a positive effect that stereotypes can

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