Stereotyping of Black Men
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Mitchell Duneier, in his ethnographic study of working-class black men in Chicago, argues that black men in American have been unfairly and inaccurately stereotyped in scientific literature and in the popular media, These stereotypes have claimed or assumed that black men have low self-esteem, little or no sense of any community of care or affection, and are willing to do anything in order to make themselves look better and their companions look worse. Duneier argues, to the contrary, that the black men he studied have a healthy sense of self, behave according to high standards and principles, and are able and willing to tack action which strengthens their emotional community rather than building themselves up at others' expense. The author writes that the black men at Valois, the Chicago cafeteria which was the site of the author's study, demonstrate an inner strength characterized by self-control and willpower that is seldom, if ever, attributed to the black male in social scientific and journalistic reports. . . . These black men had created a caring community in which one of the men . . . had even expressed his feelings for Bart by telling him the men were interested in his illness because they loved him (20). Duneier's study, then, is meant to correct the degrading misconceptions about black men in America, replacing those misconceptions with the facts which demonstrate dignified and self-respecting men who live according to high moral standards in a caring community
. . .
se men hold and freely express, a fact which strikes at the stereotype which sees black men as sharing the same views on most subjects. The respect which allows such freedom of opinion is also marked importantly by "their readiness to affirm the value of personal responsibility with overwhelming self-confidence. The men . . . are sensitive to their own separateness when behaving in accordance with specific ideas of moral worth" (83).
In Part 3, we read of the moral isolation these men feel from the mainstream society. They maintain their moral integrity despite the fact they have little respect from that society:
The kind of a person that he conceives himself to be is ultimately indicative of a relationship between himself and himself. It is the relationship between the image of self-worth with which he lives from day to day and the perception of respectability that derives from participation in the larger society embodied at Valois (117).
Again, the dignity and moral worth of each of these men is essentially an internal matter. Despite the fact that they draw strength and support from the community they have established, each of these black men ultimately expresses his worth as a feature of his own responsibility for his life
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1479
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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