[quote]Stronghold wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
You’re acting like stereotypes don’t exist for any particular reason.
[/quote]
It doesn’t matter why they exist. I am a young black male with above average skills and intellect. I do not fit any stereotype that I am aware of as far as how I act or think. Therefore, if someone is basing hiring and business practices on stereotypes, even if it is done in a benign fashion, the overall effect can have very racial consequences. That is what institutionalized racism is…for the billionth time.[/quote]
No, it does matter very much, and that is my point. Stereotypes are the manifestation of social norms. Stereotypes are not some made up bullshit that just appears in a culture one day. You’re trying to imply that Indians are commonly hired for IT jobs BECAUSE of the stereotype and that is entirely ignorant of how business and hiring works. People are hired based on their merits and the stereotype you are referencing exists because of the migration of thousands of IT jobs to India, mainly due to the lower cost of operating there. In the time since, IT has become a major source of income in India and the rate at which IT professionals there are paid has risen along with the concentration on developing IT and engineering professionals in the Indian education system. No one is hiring Indian kids with “oh well gee, he’s Indian, I bet he’s good at IT” in mind, they’re hiring them because that specific individual has some equity to add to the organization. Hiring practices aren’t based on stereotypes, they’re based on establishing competitive advantage. Once again, you show your total ignorance of how business really works.
Inner city black kids aren’t listening to rap music and wearing baggy clothes because the stereotype says thats what they do and white suburban teenagers aren’t wearing Polo and stealing $20 bills out of their grandma’s purses so they can score some weed or some blow because thats what the stereotype says. Stereotypes are based in reality, not the other way around. You are trying to argue that reality exists because of stereotypes, which is probably the most asinine thing you have said in this thread, so far.
You keep scratching at this idea of institutionalized racism, but the more you post, the more it becomes evident that you’re just trying to find a way to say that SOMETHING is racist because you say it is.[/quote]
If you think people are hired based solely on merit than you are terribly naive.
Your understanding of stereotypes is equally naive.[/quote]
Of course I don’t think that merit is the SOLE factor, I never said that. However, businesses that consistently fail to recruit the most productive and innovative employees do not succeed in the long term. The sort of insidious racist conspiracy that X and others are trying to make us believe in here is entirely contrary to the exact things that make a business succeed and grow.
Would you mind explaining to me how my understanding of stereotypes is naive? Are you trying to assert that they are not based upon real social norms? Do you think, as X apparently does, that stereotypes make the reality rather than the reality making the stereotype?[/quote]
Stereotypes are based more on perception than reality, and in that way, can create realities of their own. If you want to take this back to the ancient Greeks, and here we should because some of their ethnic (though some would say racial) stereotypes where formed that continue to today. They explained the difference in ‘races’ (where we should really say cultures) were based on whatever combination of the four humors those people contained. There point in this exercise was to prove why the Greek were the best people/culture on Earth and justified any misdeeds they may commit on others. (A similar argument could be made by white Christians who used church leaders to proclaim Africans as less than humans to propagate slavery without all those moral issues.) So stereotypes are about justifying ones own groups superiority by degrading others through their differences.
Stereotypes are about power and perception. They are not recreated everyday (though any ahistorical argument would seem to think they are) and are the product of struggles for power in a culture. A simple example: if culture states that group E is lazier than group M, then group M will probably get more jobs. This stereotype was also probably started by group M to get those jobs by demonstrating their supposed superiority.
People are taught stereotypes (look at all the conversations about acting black, white, masculine, feminine, etc.). These lessons structure personalities, what they are taught to consider appropriate and amoral. In the case of gender, it can even change how the brain is structured. I think I have talked about this before so I will give just a short explanation here. Basically, the idea that boys are more independent and girls more verbal and interactive as babies is crap. Its that adults perceive this because it is the prevailing stereotype in US culture (there was an interesting infant cross-dressing study if you want more details). Because of the way American children are treated by adults as infants - which skills they emphasize and behaviors they allow - actually changes the structure of the brain. The difference between male and female infants’ brains is tiny compared to the difference found in adult brains. All the while promoting these stereotypes in US culture.
Another example. tell a kid based on ethnicity and/or geography they will not do well in school and send them to a bad school - more than likely they will not do well in school. (There are always exceptions). If most of the bad schools are in poorer areas with large populations of minorities and few job opportunities to use an education…
I can continue if you need.
To address a couple of points you made above. The schools in India are extremely selective and only the top students (I believe close to 1 %) get a college education, usually in high demand fields such as IT or medicine.
Also, using the behavior of kids if appropriate if you are willing to argue that the kids are taught how to behave by culture around them, the same culture that is responsible (in my argument above) for promoting existing stereotypes to maintain particular power structures. Consider this, why is it ‘normal’ for college students to party and get trashed? If you look around this board you will read many promoting this stereotype as normal (and in a way explaining their own behavior while avoiding moral ambiguities). Others who do not imbibe may get chastised for being different. There are many such examples on this board.
Ever ask yourself, why is that stereotype normal? Why are those involved acting that way? Why is it perpetuated? Who gains by it? Like why are the images of the rappers in rap music, predominately black males being presented as dangerous, unlawful and sexually dominant, being sold to their main customer base, teenage middle class white boys, in the same manner as was used to justify bondage and abuse of black male slaves in the US?