All 8 Uses of
stereotype
in
Black Like Me
- All showed morbid curiosity about the sexual life of the Negro, and all had, at base, the same stereotyped image of the Negro as an inexhaustible sex-machine with oversized genitals and a vast store of experiences, immensely varied.†
stereotyped = classified in a common, but oversimplified manner
- They could not see me or any other black man as a human individual because they buried us under the garbage of their stereotyped view of us.†
- How could white men ever really know black men if on every contact the white man's stereotyped view of the black man got in the way?†
- I never knew a black man who felt this stereotyped view fit him.†
- And in a sense, such white men had good evidence for these claims, because if black men did not, in those days, play the stereotyped role of the "good Negro," if he did not do his yessing and grinning and act out the stereotyped image, then he was immediately considered a "bad Negro," called "uppity, smart-alecky, arrogant," and he could lose his job, be attacked, driven away.†
- And in a sense, such white men had good evidence for these claims, because if black men did not, in those days, play the stereotyped role of the "good Negro," if he did not do his yessing and grinning and act out the stereotyped image, then he was immediately considered a "bad Negro," called "uppity, smart-alecky, arrogant," and he could lose his job, be attacked, driven away.†
- If you did, then you allowed white America to go right on believing in the stereotype.
*stereotype = an oversimplified set of characteristics used to classify people -- especially incorrectly
- If you asked them what that "place" was, they could not really say, but every black man knew that place was right in the middle of the stereotype.†
Definition:
to classify someone or something with an oversimplified set of characteristics -- especially incorrectly
or:
someone or something representing such a classification
or:
someone or something representing such a classification