Stereotyping Black Males

When I hear young black men discuss their battles against present-day stereotypes, I, too, understand their feelings. I am a 22-year-old black female who holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Michigan and is presently teaching language arts at the junior high school level. I also enjoy blasting Ice Cube, Eric B. and Rakim and Public Enemy. And when whites see me “rollin’ ” in my GMC Blazer, they assume that I’m dealing drugs or that I’m the girlfriend of someone who does. It also does not help when they see me step out dressed in my Chicago Bulls gear.

I, too, walk up next to white women and have them clutch their purses. Store clerks also watch me like a hawk and will leave other customers waiting to come over and ask me if I need assistance. And, like my young black brothers, I have grown accustomed to these things. The actions, themselves, no longer hurt me. The thing that does hurt, however, is the fact thatI can’t even envision an America free of prejudice and the many “isms” that exist.

I’ve always considered myself somewhat of a visionary. But I’m afraid that the continued reinforcement of negative stereotypes regarding blacks will force others to become like me. Soon, I believe, there will be those who, like me, have lost sight of the dream that Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and countless others struggled to make a reality. If I can no longer see America as it can and should be, then I can never aid in the bringing forth of a new nation where the color of one’s skin doesn’t matter. Can someone tell me how we keep hope alive?

TAISHA L. RUCKER

Hawthorne