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Understanding Black folks or stereotyping in 10 steps (or less)

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In our post-racial landscape, advancements are undeniable, but the old stereotypes live on.

“The man who walks out of his house with a mind devoid of stereotypes is like the man who goes to the Antarctic without having inquired about the weather. But there is no such man; for even to know that the Antarctic exists is to know that it tends to be cold there. Our minds are necessarily full of stereotypes, and we could not negotiate the world without them.”

—From “Types of Stereotypes,” by Theodore Dalrymple in the Aug. 19, 2013 issue of National Review online.

The discourse about stereotypes is at a fever pitch with all the racially related crimes in recent headlines. In the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman hullabaloo, America has, in short order, experienced the drive-by murder of an Australian college athlete by a racially mixed group of teenagers (two Black, one White) in Oklahoma; the brutal beating of an 88-year-old World War II veteran by two Black teens in Washington state; and a White teenager being beaten by a group of his Black peers on a Florida school bus, caught on video; a film clip that was aired repeatedly for days afterwards.

It goes without saying that racial categorizing, or pigeonholing is a well-established precedence within these United States, but these recent acts of malfeasance have, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, been exposed to folks who will possibly never set foot on these shores. Yet and still, they have a mental picture, not only of a distant land, but the behavior and morals of the people therein.

Let’s start off with the notion that stereotypes are a necessary evil in a complex world. According to researchers like J. Andy Karafa, Ph.D., associate dean of Arts and Sciences at Ferris State University, they are the means by which we make sense of the chaos that confronts us on a daily basis. They are, if you will, a sort of mental short cut that tells us how to react to people and situations for which we have no time to thoroughly analyze and process, and in turn, come up with an unbiased assessment.

The images of some contemporary public figures might be considered a rehash of the “Brute” stereotype as depicted on the cover of Charles Carroll’s 1990 quasi-scientific tome, “The Negro, a Beast.” (35264)

Stereotypes are also used in a sociological context, where they arguably can be employed as a means to control and undermine select groups of people. As time goes on, these stereotypes may evolve, or be intentionally altered to conform to societal change. Occasionally, stereotypes are tailored in order to serve a particular purpose or accomplish a specific agenda.

With the founding of the New World and the need to secure a robust labor force to conform this virgin territory into a European ideal, the newly arrived pioneers saw fit to validate and justify the system implemented to provide a proper workforce (slavery) in this hostile environment. In doing so, they had to overcome the considerable obstacle of moral justification for an institution they saw as so economically necessary for the survival of themselves and the newly formed union (just as they needed justification for the seizure of land from indigenous peoples).

The people whose land was taken were soulless heathens in desperate need of the constraints of civilized (read “European”) culture and the tenets of Christianity, just as the dark-skinned savages benefited from the discipline and structure gained by tilling the fields and taming the land. Over time, the enslaved earned the designations of “Coons,” “Mammies,” “Pickaninnies,” and “Toms” as worthy titles to signify their place in the new hierarchy.

Whether or not the early stereotypes imposed on these African newcomers were intentional, they proved useful as a validation of the caste system by projecting the idea of happy, contented servants existing solely for the betterment of their betters.

“… such schemas are called stereotypes.”

—J. Andy Karafa

Making sense and generalizing

In cognitive science or psychology, a concept emerged in the 20th century promoting the idea of organized patterns of behavior or thought called “schemas.” As explained by social psychologist Karafa, human beings organize their perceptions about the environment surrounding them (and especially the rest of humanity) into schema in order to negotiate the world with minimal exertion.

“To make sense of the world, the mind categorizes things (people), automatically and unconsciously,” he says.

Of course, the thought process had been around long before clinicians started applying labels. The introduction of psychology as a formal science was useful because it developed a vocabulary and definitions to describe and explain the mysteries of behavior in a prescribed manner. In a sense, science and generalization both evolved to fulfill a specific need. Going on, Karafa says “… the good news is that these (schemas) allow us to interpret the world around us very quickly and efficiently; in fact, we are typically unaware of their use. The bad news is that whenever we categorize people, it frequently results in prejudice and discrimination.”

“Movies are not about Blacks, but what Whites think about Blacks.”

—novelist Ralph Ellison

A wider stage

New, electronically transmitted forms of mass media (including radio), providing a wider stage upon which to project these generalizations, surfaced around the same time as these notions of behavior and mind functions. One noteworthy sitcom appearing over the radio waves at the cusp of the Great Depression had its roots in the minstrel tradition, an American form of theatrical performance that evolved in the wake of the post-Civil War period. “Amos ‘n Andy,” centered around the antics of a “Negro” community in Chicago (later transplanted to the New York enclave of Harlem). Much of the series centered on the relationship of the title characters and their fellow fraternal lodge member George “Kingfish” Stevens, a chronically unemployed conniver, given to get-rich-quick flights of fancy. He was kept in his place by his overbearing shrew of a wife, Sapphire. She was an outgrowth of the 1800s “sassy mammies” stereotype who provided the template for the depiction of future generations of emasculating harridans, who eventually earned the moniker “Angry Black Women.”

The radio series’ popularity facilitated a transition to the newly emerged medium of television, where Sapphire manifested herself physically on the tiny screen in all her belligerent glory, hands on hips, arms akimbo, head shaking in time with her verbal assaults on her flawed mate.

This persona has since resurfaced in many guises, distinguishing herself in such later incarnations as Aunt Esther in “Sanford and Son,” Pam on “Martin,” and two depictions from the fertile mind of Tyler Perry—Angela in “Why did I get Married,” and its TV spin-off, “For Better or Worse;” and pop culture’s poster child for anger management referral, Mabel Simmons, better known as “Madea.”

The modern-day trend of reality television carries this further, by broadcasting domestic altercations between angry Black women and their mates (and to be fair, there is equal footage of their Caucasian brothers and sisters behaving badly). By no means a new phenomenon, this stereotype enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990’s and produced its own, unique version of the Angry Black Woman during the first season of real estate magnate Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice”—Omarosa Manigault.

Garnering such accolades as the “woman America loves to hate,” “reality TV’s No. 1 Bad Girl,” and a place on TV Guide’s list of the Nastiest Villains of All Time, Manigault reached the pinnacle of celebrity branding by gaining recognition simply by her first name: Omarosa.

Sapphire from “Amos ‘n Andy” and “Stanford and Son’s” Aunt Esther are just two examples of the Angry Black Women. (35262)

The stereotypes featured in “Amos ‘n Andy” were especially hurtful perhaps because there was no positive counter balance.

Television producer Shonda Rhimes, noted for her diverse and well-defined characters, conceived “Scandal,” a Washington, D.C.-based political thriller modeled after an actual crisis management specialist who worked for the (George W.) Bush administration. In the show, Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope seems to have risen above the Angry Black Woman label as she deftly negotiates the minefields of the Beltway to provide damage control and salvage the reputations of her clientele in the wake of their faux pas.

In doing so however, she feeds into a newer, more contemporary stereotype: the “Magic Negro.” An update of the literary device, “Noble Savage,” the term Magic Negro was popularized by filmmaker Spike Lee in the 1990s and exists solely to assist and serve the White protagonist. Journalists and social critics, including noted writer David Ehrenstein, have included President Barack Obama into this characterization.

However, these stereotypes are arguably not nearly as pervasive as the cultural shadow cast by the “thug persona,” which in itself is a derivative of the “Brute” stereotype that emerged in the wake of the Civil War. Just as its predecessor’s titles of “Coon” and “Tom” were useful appendages to explain designated roles in the framework of slavery, the Brute was an explanation of the former slaver’s fear of rebellion, and a justification for the lynchings, cross burnings, and other machinations to maintain order.

It maybe argued that the Brute and the fear of the “Black Peril” have segued into the 20th century as the militant protagonists in “Blaxploitation” motion pictures, and the later, interchangeable personas of the urban gangster and Rap performer. Curiously, White suburban youth have adopted the clothing and accouterments of these latter anti-social characterizations.

As this article went to press, an intriguing independent movie titled “American Milkshake” opened in limited release. It purports to tell the true story of a great-grandson of black face entertainer Al Jolson coming of age in the 1990s, as a wanna-be Hip Hop aspiring White teenager who idolizes Rap icon Tupac Shakur and craves inclusion in the unwelcoming African American culture.

Cross fertilization

Should anyone doubt the impact that popular culture has, the Sapphire stereotype worked its way into government policy, as evidenced by a historic Department of Labor report from 1965. In sociologist Patrick Moynihan’s landmark report “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action” (commonly called The Moynihan Report), a primary cause cited for the degeneration of the Black family was the proliferation of single-parent family units, headed by an overly dominating, emasculating mother, the wellspring from which a plethora of delinquency, scholastic underachievement, and other sundry antisocial ills spring forth.

During the Trayvon Martin trial itself, at points, the drama shifted from the comparative merits of the defendant and victim to a key witness. Attendees and the media audience focused their attention on prosecution witness Rachel Jeantel, as defense attorney Don West prodded and provoked her in an attempt to undermine her credibility. During their extended exchange, the polished, sophisticated trial attorney and the naive teenager of Haitian descent sparred and parried, and she was seen rolling her eyes in obvious annoyance. Media critics and casual observers analyzed her Ebonics-laced vocabulary, around-the-way girl demeanor, and “ghetto fabulous” style of hoop earrings and stiletto fingernails, which some believed turned the courtroom into a mini seminar on time-honored stereotypes about class, gender, and race.

This was merely icing on the defense’s cake of depicting the deceased as an adolescent thug-in-training; the latest embodiment of the “Black Brute” stereotype. There is evidence that Martin, like legions of youthful Black teens around the country may have embraced this persona in an effort to be “hip.”

Whites, as previously mentioned, do this as well, yet they do not suffer the consequences, legal and other wise, of adopting the style of fashionable hooliganism. In a nutshell, Whites may commit crimes, but Blacks (especially males) suffer the lasting label of criminal.

Mike Tyson (35261)

A central caveat in this slave-to-fashion scenario is the subtle (and, in the often abrasive culture of the adolescent, not so subtle) pressure to conform to stereotypes out of fear of being accused of “selling out” by betraying one’s own culture. Black students have been discouraged from excelling academically under penalty of suffering the pejorative term, “acting White.” In essence, to be “cool,” and fit in with their peers, they embrace the negative stereotypes a callous society has tailored for them.

Bill Cosby and other activists have decried this practice as being a major factor in perpetuating the “culture/cycle of poverty.”

Which begs the question, if art imitates life, have we come full circle and stereotypes now dictate the behavior of impressionable youth?

Cross cultural fears

“If I’m walking down a street in Center City Philadelphia at two in the morning, and I hear some footsteps behind me and I turn around and there are a couple of young White dudes behind me, I am probably not going to get very uptight. I’m probably not going to have the same reaction, if I turn around and there is the proverbial Black urban youth behind me. Now, if I am going to have this reaction-and I’m a Black male who has studied martial arts for 20 some-odd years and can defend myself-I can’t help but think that the average white judge in the situation will have a reaction that is ten times more intense.”

—Judge Theodore A. McKee, U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody White and feel relieved … After all we have been through, just to think we can’t walk down our own streets, how humiliating.”

—Remarks by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. at a meeting of Operation PUSH in Chicago (Nov. 27, 1993).

50 Cent (35263)

The Trayvon Martin melodrama merely rehashed a long-standing national perception of law and order, i.e., Black men are justifiably seen as criminal suspects. The fact that an icon of the civil rights era admitted his primal fear of being victimized by people who look like him demonstrates it is a sentiment not merely exclusive to Whites; indeed it is food for thought. Alas, it is not that simple. It’s not even possible to compartmentalize categorizing crime along racial lines, as noted in an independent publication from 1981: “Looking at race, class, and residence variables, Blacks are more afraid of crime than Whites, the poor more afraid than the middle class or wealthy, and inner-city dwellers more afraid than suburbanites. -From “Coping with Crime: Individual and Neighborhood Reactions,” by Westley G. Skogen and Michael G. Maxfield.

And here, we find ourselves in a quandary. The people who are most vocal about police abuse and over-enthusiastic profiling are the very people who are most often victimized and therefore the most in need of the law and order apparatus. Simultaneously, those who stand to suffer the most from unfair typecasting and being pigeonholed (the young Black male) are often quick to assume the mantle of self destruction. It might be said that thusly they are guilty of “enabling,” a quaint term with double meanings in mental health and psychology, but for our purposes here describes conduct that exacerbates dysfunctional or harmful behavior. It is a little close to “blaming the victim,” as is sometimes done in rape cases, but is most often used to describe the unwitting encouragement of a subject’s addictive behavior in classic codependent relationships.

“It’s not the fault of the police when they stop minority males or put them in jail. It’s the fault of the minority males for committing the crime.”

—City Councilman and former Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks

The swinging pendulum

It’s easy to dismiss this quote as the refuge of a tunnel-vision shackled authoritarian figure voicing a view that suits his own agenda. But then again, left-leaning factions can go to the other extreme, sometimes to the point of condoning extreme (and damaging) behaviors under the umbrella of individual rights. In reference to Parks’ provocative statement, the root causes of punitive judicial decisions sometimes boil down to taking responsibility for individual decisions. Journalism in its purest form is meant to be built on the bedrock of truthfulness, accuracy, and objectivity. Each of these components, in and of themselves, are wide open for definition, as may be confirmed by a casual perusal of CNN and the Fox Network. In this era of media saturation, Trayvon Martin and many other news stories are “broken” largely on the merits of their ratings potential and sensationalism.

As we have shown, pop culture Americana is marked by deeply imbedded imagery and traditions that have more than a little bearing on the news items that capture the public’s attention and scrutiny.

Stereotypes, intentionally conceived or naturally evolved, helped maintain the status quo during this country’s formative years. They continued to progress along with America’s growth and reflect its changing lifestyle. Strangely, today when there are fewer constraints, it seems this contemporary generation is embracing the same stigmas that shackled their ancestors.

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