Offensive Stereotypes

An issue I've rarely seen spoken about is the racial problem of minorities towards other minorities. Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, a city right besides Mexico, I hardly interacted with other cultures and races. I never faced any sort of racial discrimination, but I was definitely a witness to it. This experience has brought me to believe that offensive stereotypes perpetuated by the media causes minorities to view each other negatively and discriminatorily. To begin, my high school had only 3 black students. One being in my grade and the other two being my underclassmen. As an art student, I spent a lot of my time in my art teacher's classroom. While passing by one day, I saw the black female underclassmen sobbing to my teacher. I waited until the younger student left before asking my teacher what had happened. As it turned out, other classmates had resorted to using racist names and offensive stereotypes to mock her. I didn't know what happened to her after that, but I could still remember the despair written on her face. Later that day, I went to speak to the black student in my grade, his name being Josh. We conversed often during lunch on political topics. When I brought up the subject of …show more content…
My family in America all have negative outlooks on African Americans and other minorities. They whole heartedly believe the stereotypes associated with black individuals, even if none of them have had significant encounters with black people. When I question them about this, their responses are, "Didn't you see the news? I heard or saw they were like that. They are nothing like us." In actuality, Hispanics and African Americans both suffer from poor education, low-income, high chances of drug related crimes or violence, high-rates of teen pregnancy, and job discrimination. Except the media doesn't show our similarities, but our