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Black Men in Today's Society

Introduction

The research essay aims to provide research on the stereotyping of Black Men in today's society. The paper also strives to understand the stereotyping, of Black Men, in relation with Brent Staples “Black Men and Public Spaces.” For this purpose, several research resources have been reviewed to formulate a thread of conversation on the topic. The research begins with a general discussion on the position of Black Men in today's society, by researching articles from several generalized sources. Further, the research essay incorporates more specialized resources such as scholarly journal articles and books, to generate a thread of conversation on the topic. Lastly, the paper also includes annotated bibliography of five of the resources used in preparing this research essay.

Literature Review

Before discussing the Black Men stereotypes, let us define the meaning and characteristics of a stereotype. The term stereotype generally refers to “a model”, but, this word originated from the combination of two Greek words stereos- solid and typos- the mark of a blow. Today, the term is more often used to describe the characteristics of people on the basis of their ethnic, gender or national groups. Stereotypes are defined as rigid and resistant to change (Schneider, 2005, pp. 8-22). The researchers of stereotypes believe that the concept of stereotype is injected into children by churches, schools and their parents. Decades ago, men and women used to live more isolated lives and it is very difficult for a white person living in USA to know, individually, any black person. However, things have changed greatly today and so is the concept of stereotype. Culture and individual experiences play a great role in forming stereotypes.

Stereotyping in U.S

Stereotyping occurs when a person or a society over-simplifies the characterization of a group, by extracting information based on a relatively small sample of information available, about a person of a particular group. Yet, stereotyping is believed to be a very common thinking pattern in American society. It can be argued that throughout the US history, white people have held certain stereotypical views about people on the basis of color. This stereotyping of black men, in US, led to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S Constitution. The Amendments empowered black men to possess full legal rights as American citizens. However, prejudice remained the norm in America, against black men. Also, after the acceptance of blacks' legal status, Ku Klux Klan, an anti-black group emerged which helped passing of the Jim Crow laws that refrained the black people from exercising their new legal rights. This group used several violent strategies such as lynching, in order to scare black people to exercise their legal rights. Klan's also referred black men as “boys” in one of their messages. This bigotry against black men persisted in the twentieth century, as well. During the Great Depression of 1930s, black men suffered the most because they were disproportionately displaced from the bottom-most stairs of the economic stepladder. In ...