One stereotype that has always bothered me in a sense is that African American men need to put off an aggressive and "hard" persona. However, my experience hanging out with a diverse group of friends the last two years at Minnesota State University has proved otherwise. In fact, one of my roommates was very hesitant when I suggested having some of my African American male friends over. She stated that she grew up in a small town and hadn't been exposed to other races of people other than what she had witnessed in various media outlets. These media outlets showed African American men as being violent, loud and dangerous. However, after hanging out with some of my friends, I believe that I have altered her misconception at least a fair amount. My picture represents a side of African American men that is often neglected in popular media. The picture on the far left is my friend helping me carry my groceries, and the right is him ironing and croceting. I think it's easy for people to forget that there are many facets to people and also that it's important not to judge a person by a stereotype but rather by the character of an individual.
Thank you Amy for this message and making good points. I agree that the media shows African American men as thugs and pimps and criminals and does a poor job of showing our successful side. Many white women are feared of being robe by black men when coming across one due to the media and the movie "Crash" is a great example.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a great misconception to challenge. I think that with our media nowadays and with the hip hop persona that we see in music videos, people think that all African American males are going to be violent and intimidating when obviously this is not true. I think that your picture does a great job of showing these men from a different stand-point that we don't get to see often enough.
ReplyDeleteYour picture does a great job at describing this. Even though some African American males might want to show their soft side, they probably don't because that's not what they are expected to do. All the stereotypes that are shown in the media are of tough men and that's how they are expected to be. They don't want to be seen as week.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea for this photo assignment. It is really a good one to challenge. Hyper masculinity it terrible in all cases, but it is ridiculous how the African American male community is basically only considered to be hyper masculine. Great topic!
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