Black Stereotypes in America – An Essay
Introduction
Bias and stereotyping are important topics of discussion within social psychology. A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people, in which certain traits are clung to all members, regardless of actual individual variation. There exists an intense stereotype against the Black Americans in the U.S. Black stereotypes is a plague in the U.S., which cuts across both men and women of in the country. Black stereotypes in the U.S. originate from racial prejudice, bias, and discrimination by mostly the Native Americans against the African Americans living in the country. The purpose of this essay is analyzing and reflecting on the stereotypes labelled against the Black Americans in the US.
Black Americans youths are drug users
Today, there is a notion by the Native Americans that African Americans are typical drug users (Price of Blackness by Lanre Akinsiku). However, this is not rue about African American youths. People who have heard about the stereotype are later surprised to realize that Black American youths are significantly less likely to use alcohol, tobacco, beer, and drug that Hispanic and the White Americans. According to the “Price of Blackness” by Lanre Akinsiku, African Americans show less likelihood of transmitting substance abuse disorders that their Native Americans (White) counterparts. The fact that Black Americans are statistically the minority group of people in the US, the largest number of youth drug traffickers is therefore the Whites. Nonetheless, the Blacks are disproportionally arrested, targeted, and jailed for drug trafficking crimes. The US police utilize the pathological stereotype of the Black drug dealer or junkie to rationalize the imbalanced rates of racial injustice in the county (Price of Blackness by Lanre Akinsiku). Since the Black youths are overrepresented in jails for drug dealing crimes, the police forces believe that they must be locked up in jails since they deserve it, perpetuating the pathological stereotype.
