BLACK MALES ARE STEREOTYPE

Black Males Are Stereotype



Black Males are Stereotype

Introduction

White America speaks of the growing equality for all the residents of this country. However, the truth of the matter is this: the more melanin in your skin, the further from parity you are. Nearly five centuries of slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil Rights Movement have come and gone; Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X among other prominent Black freedom fighters battled against oppression for true liberation. Yet the road to such freedom is far from sight. The lynching, hate crimes, and beatings are still going strong. Racial injustice in the court system, social stereotypes, and racial profiling by police officers are a daily occurrence. (Muharrar 2004)

Discussion

Anyone who speaks of present-day “equal opportunity,” the “end” of racism and a sense of “unity” amongst culturally and racially diverse groups is living in a bubble, formed by denial and fabricated by the media. White America, in the hopes of shedding or covering up its racist skin, wants to preach this pseudo-equality when in fact Blacks in the “U.S. of A” are still suffering from a society constructed by racist, untrustworthy individuals. Not only are Blacks in the capitalist, assimilationist misnomer “United States” continually suffering from physical violence, but we also suffer from institutionalized racism, including judicial bias, policing brutality, media brainwashing and anti-Black stereotypes. (Human Rights Watch 2001)

Stereotypes Perpetuated

African Americans play sports. Latinos are gang members. Native Americans are alcoholics. Wheelchair-bound individuals are helpless. Gays are effeminate. Lesbians wear their hair short. Older adults need constant care. Anglos are either racist or are rednecks. Homeless people are drug addicts. These and other stereotypes are perpetuated by visual messages presented in print, television, motion pictures, or computers.

Many of the problems Velda and her people have suffered because of stereotypes perpetuated by television, movies and children's literature. They also come from ignorance of the rights and laws that protect the many different tribes that make up the Native American label. Many of those that she has to deal with do not understand the reservation in Lake County and its residents are a sovereign nation. (Harris 2002)The Flathead Reservation consists of over one million acres of land, seventy-two thousand acres of water, and two hundred thousand acres of timber. All these acres were presented to the ancestors of the Kootenai in 1885 by the U.S. government in the "Hellgate Treaty". The government ...