Ethic Notions Video; Thoughts and Impressions

I think that the Ethnic Notions video that we watched today in class was very eye opening. I would never have thought that African Americans were presented in such a ridiculous fashion. I think that such caricatures were very de-humanizing and undoubtedly led the African Americans to think of themselves in the horrible way which they were portrayed to be once they were exposed to such images for a long period of time.

I personally think that there are many stereotypes in the world today. People pretend to be something that they are really not; some people pretend to be kind, nice, and angelic when they are really out to get you. In the times of the Old South, African Americans were stereotyped so that people would support the slave-holders in their efforts to tame them. However today, in the free nation of America, people take on stereotypes willfully. I mean what's with that? Don't you want a certain sense of individuality? Imagine being Sambo in the olden days where you were portrayed as dumb and lazy. Wouldn't you want to be known for who you really are? My concluding thoughts on the relation of this video to real life are pretty simple-back then people didn't want to be stereotyped, and people today do unnecessarily, and for the wrong reasons. (I know-very deep).

Now, let me talk about myself personally. I am a sub-continental asian-look it up if you don't know what I'm referring too. One of the biggest stereotypes I face is that all people of my race are really smart, studious, and very concerned with our futures. I guess this is a good thing-but in my opinion, I'd rather not have any stereotype and be free to grow up establishing a reputation for myself of what I feel I should be, and not others (even though I'd still prefer being smart and studious). There is also that idea of hatred against people of my race because of outsourcing to our country. Let me makes this clear, companies choose to move to India because my fellow people are SMART AND HARD-WORKING, not because they intentionally want to steal jobs from the U.S. These are two of the biggest stereotypes of Indians which immediately come to mind to other people that sometimes angers me, and sometimes gives makes joyous.