Name: Lucas Palmer Professor: Ms.

Rand Class: English 1103 Date: 11-6-12 Stereotypes in America

America is known around the globe for many things, some positive and most others negative, but one of the most pertinent issues is racism and the stereotypes that flow out of this. The culture in the US deems confidence and superiority over others to be the most important social constructs, which can only be a deadly mixture with ignorance and unintelligence. Stereotypes are formed from the ignorant perspectives of people who think they are better than another type of person (race, gender, socioeconomic status etc), who turns mistakes or common practices into correlations with an entire group of people. My question in regards to the issue is: how can this problem eventually be weeded out of American society, or at least buffeted down dramatically. Although there is a lack of literate sources in respect to my topic of stereotypes, I am constructing an argument for government officials, school principals, and parents to take in and consider. America has always deemed itself as the land of immigrants; founded on the success of countless individuals from all around the globe, the country itself is a melting pot. Yet there is this societal misunderstanding that the people who have resided in the country longer are superior in every way to the immigrant population. "Immigrating to the United States during the 19th century was not the magical solution for the majority of the newcomers. Many ethnic groups ran into prejudice in America; with stereotyping being a major problem" (Haug). It began

with the plains Indians, who ironically had been the original residents of the North American continent and the Europeans were in fact the immigrants. The American government had already deemed the Indians as a pest or obstacle in the way of their ultimate goal of expanding west, so for a society to create stereotypes in the shadow of their government was simply too easy. Since pioneers heading west had inevitably been in conflict with these peoples since the beginning of expansion, an image of barbarians and brutish murderers came about. There would be paintings of primordial Indian men holding innocent white women captive, leading the audience to assume the worst. This was simply associating and over exaggerating the negative aspects of war with only the Indians, as many white men had been brutally murdering Indian children and women. Although archaic, the barbarian stereotype still has alcoholic implications today, as there is still a belief that Native Americans today are "gambling alcoholics." The gambling comes from the fact that the only reparations the American government gave many of these tribes was the ability to open gambling institutions on their reserve land. "Reservation Indians were portrayed in popular art as depraved --- lazy, incompetent, and immoral" (Newberry). One of the largest immigrant communities during the industrial revolution in America, the Irish, suffered heavily from hatred towards their culture and ignorance to their status in society. This is seen by the No Irish Need Apply (Haug) sanctions that many businesses of the time placed on the community because of how heavy the racism was in regards to these people. "The Irish especially faced this problem in America, often being depicted as hot-headed, oldfashioned, and drunkards" (Haug). Americans began viewing them as aggressive drunks who did nothing but beat their wives and attribute to the already high inner-city crime rates. These stereotypes begin to differ from those of the Indians simply because there is another pertinent factor: economics. The Irish immigrants had been one of the first groups to suffer from the "job

stealing" title that many Americans began to associate them with. When poor economic times hit, the dominant groups, mainly white males, find scapegoat communities of people who can take the blame away from themselves. The less favorably the group is viewed by society, the easier it is to scapegoat that group and considering the Irish were already almost at the bottom of the totem pole, it was not that hard to alienate them. The drunkenness is born from mostly unfortunate truisms as, historically, members of any lower class around the globe will find escapes or outs that will release them, only momentarily, from their mortal hell. One of these mediums of release is alcohol, or fire-water as the Native Americans referred to it, and the detrimental effects of it include how your demeanor is portrayed to the sober public. The image of a stumbling poor, raggedy, and drunk Irish man does not go over well with the public and a stereotype of this occurrence was henceforth born. A lot of the hatred for the immigrants stemmed from their Catholic ancestry (Kinsella), which has been in conflict with protestants ever since Martin Luther stamped his ninety-five thesis on that church door. The protestant churches in American had been telling their congregations that the barbaric and drunk Irish Catholics were coming to corrupt their society and steal their jobs. Another group of people unfortunate enough to experience the malevolent nature of racism and stereotypes in the US was the black community. The triangular trade, particularly involving slavery, ushered forward the integration and torture of an entire race of people in the name of financial gain. The stereotypes began during the Victorian era of imperialization where the western cultures needed to be fed a justification in order to go along with the negatives of trading. The barbaric image of people that "weren't people" was born after a heavy influence by the pseudo-science that was social Darwinism (Martinez). The masses saw this concept labeled

as a scientific understanding so, without questioning it, believed it as a truism. This ignorance was all these industries needed to commit the atrocities in Africa, as a simple stereotype can become a belief by many. This evolved, no pun intended, all the way into the Antebellum period pre-Civil War where the argument to abolish slavery in America had finally reached its pinnacle. The country was on the verge of war, so the South used the constructs of stereotypes that already existed to fuel their fight and help gain support for their side. Many, uneducated, people in the South at the time believed that slaves were either still barbarians or even worse, could use black magic (McNamara). This fear of "black magic" has existed essentially since the beginning of time, and to feed an uneducated and religious individual the idea that a person from the "jungles," of a place they have no clue about, practices witchcraft is not too difficult. The goal at this point in American history was to dehumanize this group of people in order to make, yet again, a monetary gain from their suffering. Once dehumanized, this group of people can be subjected to almost anything as, to society, they are deemed as not-human or even animals which can be objects of property. These stereotypes occurred for another century until the Civil Rights movement era of black racism began. In recent years, there has been a large increase in the flow of Latino immigration into the United States and this has inevitably created tension. As the market influxes up and down, as it always will, the reaction to the recession and depression is always attempting to find a scapegoat to blame. More times than not the Latino community is always placed in the economic blaming category as they have historically worked for very little and held many jobs in their communities. This in itself created tension again with the people that believe they are the better Americans because the Latino community was seen as competition in the job market. Once the stories of

illegal Mexican immigrants coming into the US began to become widespread, the public now associated Mexican employees as illegal. Terms like lethargic or more specifically "lazy" began to surface in an attempt to defame the Mexican immigrants that were working regardless of the legality of their working status. To compliment the illegal stories, terms regarding border crossing and fence hopping become commonplace and the "comedy" of these terms only fanned the flames. I remember personally growing up and throughout middle school terms like "spic" "lazy" and "fence-hopper" were all thrown around at Latino kids of all descent. The lethargic aspect always baffles me considering that Mexican immigrants are some of the hardest working groups of people that America has ever seen. They do the jobs day in and day out that most middle class Americans would refuse to do for ten minutes, so to say that they are lazy is a completely ignorant accusation. Another modern stereotype, created after the incidents on 9/11, is the belief that every person belonging to the Islamic faith or that resembles Arab descent is a terrorist (Page). Although these feelings have calmed down in the past few years, news organizations and pointless political debacles have seemed to poke the fire every now and then. This stereotype exists mainly because the nature of the story hits close to home and that creates a lot of ignorance regarding the issue. The people who perpetrated the attacks belonged to extremist groups claiming Islam as their umbrella, when in truth they are as Islamic as Timothy McVey was a Christian (Page). Many people began watching the news after we invaded Afghanistan and eventually Iraq to only see footage of the " bad guys" speaking Arabic and occasionally in traditional dress. In fact the hardest concept for the public to grasp is that the exact footage they are forming opinions on contains civilians as well as enemy foot soldiers.

In response to all of the stereotypes that have been presented in this essay, it is safe to make some conclusions about the topic in general. First off most stereotypes begin with the need to suppress a group of people that eventually makes its way to creating commonplace terms for these peoples. Although the practice to suppress groups of people like this has relatively died out, it still exists somewhat in the Latino stereotypes that exist because of some political implications. Secondly, all stereotypes, and I mean every single one, are only created and used out of ignorance. It's plain and simple: a factual understanding of that group of people involved in some way shape or form will completely eliminate that persons belief in that stereotype. The individual may still use it under the basis that the public has made a lot of stereotypes comical, but their actual belief in that stereotype has ceased. Next is that stereotypes can be used by governments as propaganda in order to achieve an otherwise improbable goal. Perfect examples of this are the Civil War South's use of the barbaric and magical stereotypes to keep incoming patronage for their side vibrant and the Victorian age European state's use of Social Darwinism to dehumanize blacks and allow them to be used in slavery. This pattern of stereotypes and racism blooming in relation to poor economic times has been seen all around the world throughout almost every society that has ever existed, so it isn't out of the norm for it to occur in the US. The problem is that a majority of the population in the country is receiving a classical education at some of the best institutions in the world and yet there is still a level of uneducated racism. If we were to begin the education and lessons of tolerance at a much younger age, who knows there may be a generation of children that would laugh at the archaic nature of their parents and grandparents.

Bibliography Page, Clarence. "Terrorists Who Defy Every Stereotype." Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune, 14 Mar. 2010. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-0314/news/ct-oped-0314-page-20100314_1_bombers-and-hijackers-middle-easterners-terrorists>. McNamara, Maura. "Magic&and&the&Supernatural in the African American Slave Culture and Society." Umich.edu. University of Michigan, 2012. Web. 2 Nov. 2012. <http://www.umich.edu/~historyj/docs/2010-winter/McNamara.pdf>. Haug, Christine. "The Stereotyping of the Irish Immigrant in 19th Century Periodicals." The Stereotyping of the Irish Immigrant in 19th Century Periodicals. Victoriana Magazine, n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://www.victoriana.com/Irish/IrishPoliticalCartoons.htm>. Martinez, Ruben. "At the Crossroads: Latinos in the New Millennium." PBS.org. PBS, 2004. Web. 2012. <http"Stereotypes | Indians of the Midwest." Stereotypes | Indians of the Midwest. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://publications.newberry.org/indiansofthemidwest/indianimagery/stereotypes/>.://www.pbs.org/americanfamily/latino1.html>. "Irish Immigrants in America during the 19th Century." Irish Immigrants in America during the 19th Century. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://www.kinsella.org/history/histira.htm>.

Name Class Professor Date

Reflection

All in all, the process of researching stereotypes and racism in the United States has opened my eyes to how ignorant the population has been towards people that were "different" from the average Joe. Many groups have been subjected to harsh verbal and sometimes physical abuse in regards to stereotypes all because the people perpetrating the abuse are too ignorant to find out the truth. The people under attack by these stereotypes suffer tremendously in the political, economic, and social realms because they get labeled as a certain something by these stereotypes. I was also fascinated by the history of stereotypes and how rich it actually is in America alone. The fact that certain beliefs of witchcraft existed during times of slavery and that the drunkenness of certain few individuals of Irish descent turned into a common outlook towards that community.