Research Paper On African Americans Are Criminals

'African-Americans are criminals'. 'Native Americans are legless drunks who live on reservations'. Stereotypes are running amok in our society and they find their way and slip into our minds owing to the international nature of the Internet and broader media. Defining stereotypes is an essential constituent of this essay in order to be able to discern images featured in the film to be identified as stereotypes. Lawrence Blum, a philosopher and lecturer at the University of Massachusetts in Boston defined stereotypes as “false or misleading generalizations about groups held in a manner that renders them largely, though not entirely, immune to counterevidence… A stereotype associates a certain characteristic with the stereotyped group” (McLaurin 3). The nature of promulgation of stereotypes is of particular interest in order to being able to grasp …show more content…
Blum claims that in the case of a group that consists of several sub-factions the impact of the stereotyper being disregardful towards the inner diversity of the group arises, disrespecting the cultural or ethnic identities of the members of the groups (Blum 273). This is impeccably represented by the name 'Native Americans', which includes the indigenous inhabitants of the current United States despite them forming separate tribes and possessing, though not entirely, dissimilar cultures. Another effect that Blum names is moral distancing between the stereotyped group and the stereotyping group can readily manifest when the 'otherness' of the stereotyped group is exaggerated in the mind of the stereotyper, which might lead to violence provided that the content of stereotype describes the group as inferior (Blum