The stereotypes surrounding Asian-Americans seem to foil those about black folks. In whatever manner black folk are characterized, Asians tend to be seen as the exact opposite.
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| Dare I mention stereotypes about penis size? |
The tightly correlated dichotomy illustrates how contrived all of these stereotypes actually are.
Check out the chart complied by Abagond — >
Striking, isn’t it?
Surly we don’t believe that such descriptions just happen to perfectly parallel each other. These characterizations have been constructed by years of conditioning and prejudice.
Polarized stereotypes allow us to suppose that if Asian-Americans meet with success, racism must not actually be a big deal. They allow us to assume that there is something wrong with black folks that don’t succeed, and that we can feel secure in supporting the status quo.
Artificial polarization helps to pit people of color against each other, leading to division where we should have unity. The ‘divide-and-conquer‘ strategy fuels the permeating nature of modern racism in the USA.
It also allows white folks to sit comfortably in the middle, further normalizing our culture/experiences relative to the ‘extremes’ around us (see post: Growing up White and ‘Normal’).
By allowing such dichotomies, we belittle the fact that Asian-Americans do indeed a great deal of racism. Even ‘good’ racial stereotype are never actually as beneficial as they may seem (see post: Model Minority) and still involve the judgment of people based on race rather than as individuals. Despite a supposed ‘model minority’ work ethic, Asian-Americans still experience higher levels of poverty per capita than white folks do, and must constantly battle perceptions of being perpetual foreigners.
What do you think readers? Does this model of stereotype polarization hold?
What about other POC groups: how do they fit in to this paradigm?
