Stereotypical Black Women

As an African American female, I am very aware of the many stereotypes that people place on me and other African American females. I know that as humans, we tend to jump to conclusions and make generalizations about almost everything. As I looked through the list of fallacies that were covered in class, I realized that the common fallacy of sweeping generalizations is one that continues to plague human beings. I know that people have tons of characteristics that they assume are traits of black females, but of course we know that it’s impossible for everyone in a group to be the same. I know nine times out of ten, television shows portray black women as loud, aggressive, angry, and obnoxious. The perfect example of this can be shown in the following video clip from a show called “Everybody Hates Chris”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhspzWX03Ak

This video portrays a black wife becoming extremely angry and over dramatic about some comments her husband made. Although it is easy to make assumptions about people, we must try not to fall into this trend. I am actually the complete opposite of the stereotypical black woman. I am very quiet and reserved, not very outspoken at all, and although we all get angry about things, I am not one to express my anger in an openly aggressive manner. So what is true in part is most definitely not true of the whole. Yes, there may be a large portion of black women who have these specific traits like being loud, aggressive, angry, and obnoxious. However, people must remember that when stereotypes describe a group of people, the description doesn’t necessarily describe 100% of the group.