This example highlights one of my own stereotyped images and ideas I had about Black women. In elementary, middle and high school, I had very limited contact with Black women, yet I thought I knew something about them. I saw images in the media over and over, and heard other people’s stereotyped ideas about Black women being more promiscuous than white women. Even though I had zero Black female friends as a child and little contact with Black women, Black people or Black culture, I believed my judgments about Black women to be true. I learned about these ideas from the media, from very limited roles Black women held in movies and TV shows. I learned these ideas from other white people’s stereotyped perspectives, which were not based in any understanding or knowing of Black culture or Black people.
It wasn’t until years later that I found this stereotype to be false. Over the past 20 years, I have developed deep and strong relationships with many Black female friends and romantic partners, sharing our experiences with dating, sex and so much else. I have countless other Black female friends, co-workers and associates with whom we have shared conversations, stories and life experiences. I have been working with youth of many cultures and racial groups for over 14 years and have witnessed the behavior of Black and white girls in their sexual exploration for the duration of this time. Because of the spaces and relationships my life has taken me over the last 20 years, I have witnessed and heard a pretty wide range of Black and white female sexual behavior. I can say now, with a strong conviction, that I have overwhelmingly witnessed white women being much more promiscuous than Black women. Yet the media overwhelmingly tells the story of the over sexualized Black female body while upholding images of the white female body as pure and innocent. Narrative after narrative, we are exposed to these images, these stories and they are not at all based in the realities of people’s lives, their values or their experiences.
This is just one example to show how the false narratives of people of color get ingrained in the minds of white people. How we grow up believing so many lies and stereotyped ideas of people who don’t share the same skin color or the same culture as us. We are fed misinformation and believe it as if it is fact. Then we use these non-factual facts to influence how we relate to people or treat people. Often, we teach our children the same non-factual facts and the cycle of misunderstanding and ignorance continues.
dissectingwhiteness.wordpress.com 