Please Stereotype Me!

A young female with loud red hair walks sheepishly past you. Eyes to the ground; seemingly lost in thoughts. Black fitted jeans and a black top ornately sprinkled with studs everywhere. One could (and will) assume many things: she’s anti-government, she’s tough, and she resists authority and challenges most rules. She probably likes metal and pretends to know about literature. Across the way is a female with long blonde hair, in a Juicy jumpsuit, oversized sunglasses and tanned skin in February. Assumptions: she likes male attention, bugs gross her out and reading, she claims the ability to run in spike heels, and likes vodka. These assumptions, or stereotypes, aren’t accidental. These attributes are probably very accurate traits or traits they admire. One could argue our personal freewill advocates that people dress a certain way because they want to; or could it be that our will isn’t as free as we thought and we’re actually adhering our identity to existing traits we find otherwise?

I’m starting to realize that as much as we’d like to criticize stereotyping, it’s really us that are actively endorsing and inviting stereotyping upon ourselves. We’re all very aware of the stereotypes out there; we joke about them, shake our heads at them, and totally embrace them! Whether it’s subconscious or completely intentional, we know the image we’re giving when we wear and do certain things. I happened to stumble upon this site that fully explains what we’re saying with the most tedious detail: Men with short hair are more credible, women with long hair are rebellious and less intelligent, clothing says everything about your education and personality, and the colors you choose will expose your true inner feelings.

While it’s unlikely all these judgments enter our minds (or are even accurate) based off appearance alone, there is definitely evidence that people get different treatment with different outfits. People are attracted to others that remind them of themselves. Clothes that you relate to transcend other ideals that are mutually shared. It’s only unhealthy when we have to make judgments of those we’re not familiar with. Different cultures and minority groups have standards that boring, white people wouldn’t understand. The trick is to fight the fear of the unknown, embrace it rather than dismiss it. People just think they’re sooo smart when they declare “baggy pants started in prison, so that guy must be a thug or inviting sex.” If you repeat that, you’ll notice it starts to sound dumber each time.

So do we dress and act for us or them? I think both. I know there’s a possibility I won’t have enough time to reveal my quirky, scandalous, fun self to everyone I encounter, so I rely on my clothes, music, and walk to do the talking when time is less available. [This act actually has a name, called self-fulfilling stereotypes] I even find that catchphrases and pieces of conversation can fall into predictable stereotype categories. One's college major also speaks measures about them and people love to fulfill the role that goes with their choice of study (one time this guy said he wouldn't be talking to me if I was a business major- because they're boring, duh). It probably wouldn’t take long for me to tell you your preferences in music, movies, bars, or tell you how you would react in a certain scenario. Obviously this sounds arrogant, but I’m sure I’d be more hot than cold because of my genuine passion for people watching. And surprisingly, people will find themselves proclaiming interests that belong more to the stereotype they identify with than themselves. So does our self-image come from within, independent of other influences or bias? Or do we form our identity to characteristics that already exist in others?

Agenda Setting is Framing Our World

If I see a blonde on Rodeo Drive, I will figure we have nothing in common... and not because I hate shopping. On the other hand, I anticipate open and like-minded people at the independent bookstore. If a man of interest never makes eye contact with me, then the feelings probably aren’t reciprocated. Besides the subjects taught in school, what our parents showed us, and ideals we gather from our friends or peers, where else do we gather social or general knowledge? The formal lessons from school, parents and friends are so miniscule in comparison to everything else we know, we think, the way we manage our day-to-day and how we think about the future. This outside knowledge is the basis of choosing and interpreting body language, our choice of tone and words, our choice of action and so on. The unthinkable amounts of lessons learned outside of the classroom are not only exercised daily, but sweepingly accepted- and nobody really stops to ask, “Why do I think like this?”

Those who know me would likely predict I’m going to tell you the media is responsible, but the truth is that I don’t have an answer. Media is certainly my leading theory, but I can’t pretend to know the answer to a question so deep. All I can offer is support to my theory and hopefully encourage some critical thinking.

Movies, books, news, TV, radio take responsibility for teaching us things that don’t fit in the grid of school or parents. I’ve found that every ordinary reaction I have or mediocre choice I make is drawn from expectations and assumptions. If I text a friend, I expect a response, if I don’t get this expected response, I assume something is off (given the assumption they’re not busy). I expect that if I walk down Rodeo Drive I will deal with pretentious blondes that are uninterested in things beyond their designer bag. Obviously no scenario of life is guaranteed, no matter how predictable or recurrent past experience is, so why would I expect such things? Media teaches us and our role models (considering that behavior observed through others is most likely behavior derived from media), how to expect the world is or should be. If we took media away as an option for social learning, what would we be like? Would our instinct stay in accordance with how we currently behave or how we currently interpret others? Would I still have this resentment toward blondes shopping on Rodeo, or eagerness to make time for bookstore conversation?

Agenda setting is how news and media determine what stories are newsworthy. As a journalism student, I’ve had personal experience with changing, editing and framing stories to fit into a more relatable perception or different angle. These agendas are basically someone’s experience in life that has now been translated into an across-the-board norm.

It’s a house of cards that’s a force to be reckoned with. Crediting all of our basic knowledge of cause and effect to sources with possible conjecture, probable opinions, and definite misrepresentation isn’t comforting, but it’s all we have. It’s impossible to try and challenge every frivolous thought that lifetimes have worked to establish. Instead, the importance of doubt and critical thinking grows exponentially; we must sift through what matters and question the norm, the accepted and the forsaken.

Visibility Does Not Translate Into Equality

Hide your wife, hide your kids… cause there are black people rapin’ everyone out there, while selling your kids crack. According to most media outlets, especially local news, white people are victims to violent crimes, drug dealers and backdoor “reparations” for slavery of black people. Loving mothers will desperately warn their grown children to be careful before wandering into the labyrinth of terror, otherwise called Dallas, alone. It’s no obstacle to find danger lurking in the corners of inner cities in news, but how many know about the CIA-crack-connection in the 80’s? Is it possible that this disproportion coverage represents reality and minorities have this embedded anger that white people are innocent of? Are non-whites simply more prone to crime? Rational thinking, personal experience with the angriest white people, the fact neither you nor I have probably never met someone that’s been attacked by a black person lead me to believe no.

News stations have standards for what makes a crime story “newsworthy.” Feature crimes are usually audacious, vicious, or unusual in some way. If the crime is an immediate threat, then it is considered newsworthy. Other than that ambiguity, newsworthy standards fluctuate between stations and intuitions of reporters. But this “intuition” I speak of invites slanting biases opposing minorities, for the most part. Our mainstream news is more compromised than ever. Floods of stories that seem objectively newsworthy are ignored all the time, for reasons that are open to speculation. The ratio of black criminal coverage to white criminal coverage is 3:1, even though statistics say they commit about ¼ of national crime and only represent 13% of the population (back to rational thinking). And when white criminals are shown, their race is used as an ironic juxtaposition to emphasize how surprising it is that educated white people misbehave. Like in this case, where a suspect involved with child pornography is "not under criminal investigation and police are just concerned for his welfare." This disproportion leads to severe public opinion perversion, whether they’re maximizing people’s failures or ignoring their existence. Mass media is the largest player in public opinion and racial progress because of the amount of people they reach and subtly persuade.

Well-meaning people might question the motive behind racial typecasting and argue that news only broadcasts what is happening. Unfortunately, the news is highly perpetuated by lobby groups and corporations with economic affiliations that have redefined conflict of interest. Politics have their own agenda to set and use the news to reach their audience. White people with power have an unspoken fear of losing what privilege comes with being white; and make no mistake; there is definitely still a gap between white and non-white privileges. Stated bluntly- while we abolished a formal apartheid system, there still remains a white-supremacist dynamic. Race is a tried-and-true tool to wedge a divide between people that would otherwise unite and challenge elites. “Political language," wrote George Orwell in 1946, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

These points may seem cynical to sweet idealists that have been target to covert manipulation, but these tactics are hardly original. A little research will dig up plenty of examples in history where media is used flagrantly to oppress non-whites. By no means does this come from some arrogant high ground, rather another person stuck in the same dynamic fighting to get out.