How do you identify something as being a stereotype without buying into it? There are many ways to do this. First of all you must remain open-minded. People are different, no matter their race. Not all blacks are trying to be gangster. Not all whites are trying to be educated. Some people tend to act outside the stereotypes of their races, which is when they are considered to be acting another race. However, that doesn’t make them less white or less black. They are still who they are. When they look into the mirror they are the same color that they will always be. No matter how they act, they will still be perceived as white or black. The race does not change and the race does not make the man.
I have a white friend named Robert who is always being perceived as acting black. All his friends are black and he is a member of a black fraternity. He used to wear his hair in braids, he dresses and acts “gangsta” and loves the whole hip-hop scene. They call him “White Rob” although some people get offended when they hear him being referred to as white, especially his fraternity brothers. This is because they say that he is a cool white boy, that he’s “down,” and is an honorary member of the black race. Did they happen to really look at him recently? The boy is white. He is always asked many different questions. The most frequent question is what race he is because people tend to not believe its possible for him to be white because of the way he acts. However, Robert is really pale with red hair, it’s not really possible for him to be anything but white. Robert keeps his hair shorter now but he wears doo-rags on his head, which is traditionally worn by blacks.
What?
This blog is part of a larger project of our anthropology class. While others pay particular attention to public communication, sex and sexuality, and body language, our focus here is the performance of race. We look at the many ways in which people or things become of an ethnic background. This can include how a person references, whether through physical attributes, speech patterns, or surroundings, another ethnicity. It can include the ways in which a person makes their own ethnicity apparent (or render them invisible). Even within one ethnic diaspora, we meticulously capture the events in which they separate themselves through even narrower ethnic classifications. Every entry displays a reenactment of a racialized characteristic in the context of American life -- and a profound sense of the meaning of culture.
Why?
We participate in the mass observation movement because we believe that it has much to contribute to the field of anthropology. We capture the "thick description" described by Geertz without the consequences of our participation. In each moment, we are able to catch power structures, cultural flows, functions, structures, an individual's or community's relationship to its environment, human agency, symbols and symbolic meaning, the difference differences make, and/or how history is played out in one simple incident.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
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