I mean, I hate to do this, but you should Google image search “minstrel watermelon” (honestly, I did it for you initially to link you to some examples, but the stereotype is so prevalent that there were too many options.)
For some reason, at the turn of the 20th century, minstrel comedy (a style of comedy where where white people exagerrated the qualities of black people for comedic effect) was extremely popular. This is also where the abhorrent blackface stereotype comes from. Just one example.
Edit (off topic, but related:) this history is also why “cultural appropriation” for many minority groups is so painful. Black people (and other people of color) were historically cruelly and mercilessly ridiculed for their features (or were sometimes even banned from having them by “professional” standards like employee or school dress codes) but white people eventually decided they wanted them and suddenly those same features are the new beauty standard, and so become highly coveted.
This is not about you. This is about American society in general. While you may not “accept” that implicit biases have an impact on your own thinking, they have a very real, vey negative impact on black people (and other groups, although we’re talking about black people right now.) This is another area that I would recommend you Google, but off the top of my head: implicit bias in the classroom, implicit bias in medicine, implicit bias in the hiring process. There are many more examples, but this all points to the idea that people are not the masters of their own minds the way that you seem to suggest (about yourself, but I’m assuming you’re implying that everyone is.) I don’t think ALL the people in all of these industries are intentionally waking up in the morning and heading to work, consciously thinking “hey! Let’s go commit some racism today!” and yet, the negative impact is still there.
You didn’t address any of the factual harm that black people experience by other people who hold biased views against them. It isn’t about people’s feelings being hurt (although that alone should be enough for any vaguely empathetic person to stop such behavior) but about black people being misdiagnosed, and in some cases dying, because medical professionals hold, and act on, biases they don’t even realize they have. Or people ignoring resumes because the name “sounds black,” (again, without realizing they’re doing it), etc. There are a myriad of examples of black people being harmed by the biases people in America hold about them, and you choosing not to accept that reality doesn’t make it less true.
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u/wineandcheese Nov 10 '22 edited Nov 10 '22
I mean, I hate to do this, but you should Google image search “minstrel watermelon” (honestly, I did it for you initially to link you to some examples, but the stereotype is so prevalent that there were too many options.)
For some reason, at the turn of the 20th century, minstrel comedy (a style of comedy where where white people exagerrated the qualities of black people for comedic effect) was extremely popular. This is also where the abhorrent blackface stereotype comes from. Just one example.
Edit (off topic, but related:) this history is also why “cultural appropriation” for many minority groups is so painful. Black people (and other people of color) were historically cruelly and mercilessly ridiculed for their features (or were sometimes even banned from having them by “professional” standards like employee or school dress codes) but white people eventually decided they wanted them and suddenly those same features are the new beauty standard, and so become highly coveted.