Stereotypes of white Americans
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Stereotypes of white people in the United States are historically based, culturally relevant and modern-day observations about the character and behavior of white people.
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Stereotypes
Treatment and Tolerance of Non- whites in the 1600's
According to Audrey Smedley, white people in the 1600's were greedy and incredulous in their pursuit of financial gain, regardless of who suffered: "What's important to remember is that when the English established the colonies, they were motivated by greed. We don't talk about that very much in our history, that people are motivated by greed. But the earliest colonists came and took over whatever land they could get from the Indians. And by the 1620s or so, it was very clear they needed laborers to work that land. And that's when they established indentured servitude. [...] By 1680, you see the beginning of the changes. [...] They passed laws that gave Europeans privileges while they increasingly enslaved Africans. [...] All of the Europeans become identified as " white." And Africans take on a different kind of identity. They are not only heathens, but they are people who are perceived as vulnerable to being enslaved. And that's a major point."
Social stereotypes
In the United States, white people make up the majority of the nation's politicians, military leaders and corporate executives, while most minority groups have a smaller presence, and are less well-off. Other stereotypes of white people include the idea that they are all "extremely self-involved, uneducated about people other than themselves, and are unable to understand the complicated ways in which people who are not white survive."
Negative portrayals of other white people
As the social definition of " white people" has changed over the years, studies have shown that different races, ethnicities, and nationalities have different stereotypes of white people. Ethnic groups such as the English, Irish, and Italians have been portrayed in popular media and culture in a negative fashion. white Hispanic and Latino Americans are often overlooked in the U.S. mass media and in general American social perceptions, where being "Hispanic or Latino" is often incorrectly given a racial value, usually mixed-race, such as Mestizo, while, in turn, are overrepresented and admired in the U.S. Hispanic mass media and social perceptions.
Intra- white stereotypes
The dumb blonde is a popular-culture derogatory stereotype applied to blonde-haired women. The archetypical "dumb blonde," while viewed as attractive and popular, has been portrayed as very promiscuous, as well as lacking in both common street-sense and academic intelligence, often to a comedic level. The dumb blonde stereotype is used in 'blonde jokes.'
See also
- Acting white
- Angry white male
- Ethnic stereotype
- List of terms for white people in non-Western cultures
- Redneck
- Stereotype
- Stereotypes of black people
- Stereotypes of white people
- Stereotypes of South Asians
- Stuff White People Like
- White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
- White trash
