ENG 102

The article that I used ‘ Thinking Well of African Americans’ who wrote Alexander Czopp from University of Toledo and Margo Monteith from University of Kentucky is about African Americans’ stereotypes in society. I wanted to use this article because, the content is about African Americans which I planned to write about them linking with racism in my research paper. The article was basically about the stereotypes of blacks and their negative vs. positive stereotypes in society. I agree the article’s argument that Blacks are lazy and aggressive but on the other hand they are rhytmic and athletic. These examples are some information that I planned to use in my paper. Biological differences creates racism,as a result racism creates stereotypes like these.

Martin Luther King Jr. point out that there are three charecterictic ways that oppressed people deal with. These are acquiescence, violence and nonviolent resistance. King continues with the saying ”Negro’s problem will not be solved by running away, Negro should struggle for his rights”.  Basically King says that all these three characteristics are needed for black people in order to achieve the goal of integration. But with nonviolent  resistance things will get in its way for black people more properly to get the rights of a community.

First, I started to research about race,racism and ethnicity from EbscoHost. I read many academic journal about these topics and my plan is to link these topics with stereotypes. I used again EbscoHost as a source because I found it very beneficial for my Research Paper. I am planing to use more than 7 or 8 academic journals to write my RP. Furthermore, I found some interesting racial issues from the news archives. I will add these issues in my RP to give some examples from real world.

A minority group is any distinct group in society that shares common group characteristics and is forced to occupy low status in society because of prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is defined as negative feelings about people belong to certain groups, stereotypes are beliefs that people who belong to certain groups possess certain characteristics and discrimination is a form of negative behavior associated with a given stereotype.  Today like in Turkey, Armenians and Kurds are examples of minorities. Citizens of Turkish society are the dominant social group on minorities. For instance these days because of America has accepted the Armenian Genocide, Turkish citizens see Armenian minority more prejudiced just like Kurds. Kurds are something different because when saying Kurds people in Turkey may think about the terror organization but it’s not the case. Not all of them are the member of that terror organization. They shouldn’t be discriminated from society. Just like America, Muslims are seen as terrorist maybe because of their appereance or skin color. Citizens of US  are prejudiced to the Muslims because of the 11th September. They could be prejudiced but they shouldn’t been discriminated by society because US has a lot of etnic groups in it. Like African Americans they are seen as lazy and that’s why when in a job interview, the white skinned colored man get the job rather than the African American but because of his skin color. These kinds of prejudices will harm the society and seperate the society and also will increase the level of discrimination among same groups of people.

Cathy Hwang states that not all the stereotypes are % 100 right. It is right because making generalization is not  appropriate. For instance, the Asian example. As Hwang says ‘ All Asians are good at math ‘ put unfair pressure on Asians who don’t want to be considered as ‘ good at math’. So the stereotype like ” ALL ASIANS ARE GOOD AT MATH ” seems to be a positive stereotype but actually it is not positive.

William Faulkner’s ‘ A Rose For Emily’ is about a woman who lived in the times of civil war. Like northern vs. southern. In story there is a lot of symbolism like the rose. The narrator is in the middle of the society like seeing everything in society. For Emily her love is the most important characters. She adores him and that’s why she poisoned him and kept him in the house even he is dead. It’s like even his dead can’t get far away from Emily.

Frank O’Connor’s story ‘My Oedipus Complex’ is obviously how boys are psycologically addicted to their mother’s like girls to their fathers. The boy in the story Lenny, is some sort of in love with his own mother bacause he is the boss of the house before his father came back from the war. When father came back mother is interested in his husband rather than caring her own child which is disturbing for Lenny. He is a son who is in love with his own mother and this psycological term is called Oedipus Complex by Freud. That’s bacause, he always disturbs his father and his mother always warns Lenny. Lenny is a boy like who wants to care and love his mother all the time. This story is about a natural psycological term that any child can live.

Salman Rushdie’s Reality Tv is about real tv shows that manipulate people who watch them. Today we can also see reality shows which affect us and take our time on tv while watching them. Some of us became a fan of these shows. As Rushdie states in the story people do many silly things in the real shows.For instance quarreling, bitching vs. It is true actually because I have seen a tv show called BBG which is a reality show and it is seen that people show many characteristics in there. Rushdie also says that today’s newspapers there are murderers on first pages this is interesting because he states that people may be encouraged by seeing these people on first page and this will spread among people like a virus. If anybody is affected by these he/she can be also in the first page of newspaper which is a disaster I think. This is also a change in our world because when you open the news you can see murders or vs.It has to be in news mostly economic or political thing but some times media show these kind of things much which affects citizens much.

John Cheever’s Enormous Radio is a short story which shows our today’s world reality. The family relations, couple relations are included in this story. Today’s world people are arguing, fighting or complaining about their relations. For instance a married couple may argue all the time so the issue is there is no healthy relations in today’s world. Reality is the and Cheever shows this in his story with the radio sounds. Sounds are the real way of communicating people with each other so fighting or complaining with each other are heard by Irene Westcott who owns the radio. Irene’s family seems perfect but it is not like that. She says ”we are not like that are we husband” so she try to deceive herself by doing that. Irene gives much attention that her husband to that radio because she is afraid that the others also may hear Westcotts but the husband believes that there is not a thing like.