Stereotyping

Stereotyping PHL 103: Informal Logic Instructor: Kurt Mosser September 12, 2011 Stereotyping is something that I feel we all do to some extent in life. We go about our day to day experiences seeing new people and forming an opinion on them before we truly get to know them. A stereotype is a belief held by you about a certain group of people. This can have long running effects on how we live life, and the person being stereotyped against may have negative effects. Being an African-American male growing up in the projects of Atlanta by a single mother, I had heard several times from my mother what stereotypes were thrown out about black males. All of them were negative. My first time having an encounter where I was stereotyped was when I was in college at the University of Mississippi. I played football there, and we had all of our personal information in our bio, such as where we grew up, major, things we were interested in. One day in the student union I was checking my mail box when a student who was white asked me if I played football. I explained that I did, and he asked if I was Darius Tate. We went on to exchange email addresses and we would go on to become friends, or at least I thought we became friends. He always seemed to ask me how was school and if I ever needed help to let him know. I thought that he was doing this to be friendly, so I always politely declined his request. One day, I check my email, and I have a forwarded email from a mutual friend of ours that was from Eric. It was titled “Blacks are so dumb”. I thought that I had done enough through my own grades to dispel his myth of all blacks being dumb, but I think that he allowed his stereotype to win out. I asked him why would he feel this way about a group of people, and he told me that throughout his life, he had grown up with black kids that didn’t take school serious, and all they wanted to do was play sports and smoke weed. He generalized an entire race because of a few people because of people he knew when he was a teenager. I told him that I had never done drugs, I had never tried it. And while I did enjoy playing I didn’t love it. The mistakes I find in this argument were everybody is different. We can’t say because one person messes up, anyone that looks like him may do the same. I have 3 cars. My favorite car by far is a 1995 Caprice Classic. I re-did the interior of the car and I put pipes on the car so I could hear the engine roaring. It is a beauty, and everywhere I drive it, I have offers to purchase the car from me. I have tinted windows also. 3 months ago, I was pulling up to my street about to turn right into my subdivision when I noticed that a police car had put his lights on and signaled for me to pull over. The officer steps out of the vehicle, and pulls his gun immediately. I’m very scared at this point, he yells for me to roll down the window. I do, give him my information. He tells me that I was looking suspicious, and that’s why he stopped me. I feel like he stereotyped me because I was driving an older model car, and I was black. That’s the only suspicious thing I was doing. All blacks don’t commit crime. I work every day for everything that I have. The cop was white, and still couldn’t give me a valid reason why I was pulled over. I think that maybe I’m guilty of stereotyping the cop in this case, because I really don’t know what was going on in his mind. I think that maybe he was thinking that his life was in jeopardy, and that my tinted windows may have restricted his view into the car. This goes back to generalizing an entire group based on the actions of a few. In reading the article “Stereotyping Has Lasting Negative Impact” it discusses the after effects of what a person who has been stereotyped against feels. One thing that it didn’t talk about was the feeling of always wanting revenge. I wanted to pay the cop back for the feeling of disrespect that he gave me. I wanted him to lose his job without any regards to him possibly having a family to take care of. I listen to all kinds of music. Rock bands, such as Aerosmith, Coldplay, Keane, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Guns & Roses are some of my favorites. I also listen to country music; I enjoy Faith Hill, Garth Brooks, and Shania Twain. I also like old school artist like Eric Clapton, The Doors, The Beatles, and Elton John. You don’t get to hear that type of music much with my collection of friends. They usually listen to Hip-Hop, Rap, and R & B. I usually get branded with I’m trying to act “white”, or whatever that means. This not only demeans me, but the great artist that are putting out this great music. I think that they justify their thinking by coming up with arguments that don’t make much sense. If they are white artists, they must cater their music for white people. And because I don’t come from a neighborhood that has majority white people then I can’t relate to the music that these artists make. This line of thinking is not only stupid but closed minded. I enjoy any artist that makes great music, and while I understand it may not be what my friends enjoy, when they get into my car, the great cd X&Y may be in the cd changer.