I'm Watching You...

Throughout the week I started people watching at the Willowbrook Mall. The first store I entered, my results were very interesting...Surprisingly, I was basically ignored. The person who was supposed to greet me was texting instead of doing their job. She looked up, said "Hi!" and went back to texting. However, when a black-American girl around my age walked in.... she shot up to greet her! I think that possibly the worker greeting us was worried about being seen as having a prejudice against black-Americans  so she made sure to greet the black girl rather than me.

In the second store I entered, my results were very different. I was quickly greeted with a happy smile, and so was the teenage black girl that walked in after me. These were more of the results that I was expecting.

In the final store I went to, I watched adults interact. A younger girl was working in the store, and when greeting adults, she communicated better with the white adults. When a black adult came in, the girl greeting them gave a polite hello and moved onto the next customer. However, when approaching a white adult, the girl greeting looked much more comfortable around them and attempted to make conversation. 

Overall, my results were very scattered. In one store, the greeter seemed to favor black-Americans, while the other favored white-Americans. The second store I went to had results that were much more expected. When being paid to do a job, I would have expected that a greeter would treat everyone equally.

Update On My Somewhat Creepy People Watching

As of right now my plan is the same as stated in my last post. I will still be using the method of natural observation by secretly watching how both employees and shoppers interact based on race. I will take notes on my phone, however I will now be bringing along a friend who will help me point out certain responses so I do not look like a creepy girl all by herself watching people. I realized that by being by myself I would look more out of place and I do not want to cause any attention to myself during the experiment. My friend will be the same age and the same race as me, so she will have little to no effect on the results of the experiment. I expect that employees will not treat customer's differently based on race, since their job is to be polite to everyone. However, this idea may just be me being optimistic. I hope that there will be no drastic change based on race to support the idea that racism towards Black-Americans is becoming less frequent. 

Strategy

By using the method of naturalistic observation, I plan to observe Black-Americans in the Willow brook Mall. With the holiday season coming up, the malls are sure to be packed with people. By going to the mall at the popular time of late afternoon-night time, there will surely be enough people to unknowingly participate in this experiment.

When in a clothing store, (these will vary so the experiment will not be obvious) I will pretend to be shopping when in reality I will be watching how the worker in the front of the store greets each incoming customer. I will take notes on my phone of how the worker acts toward two different Black-American customers as well as two different White-American customers (including myself). I will spend as much time as I need in this store to record information on the way the four different customers are greeted.

I will then move on to another store and observe the way that employees assist customers based on their race. I will once again take notes on my phone and record my findings when once again observing two different Black-American customers as well as two different White-American customers (including myself). I will look for a change in attitude (such as being more or less patient), tone of voice, or a change in body language. 

Research Method

For the topic of Racism Against Black-Americans, I've chosen the sociological research method of naturalistic observation. I feel that this will be the best way for me to achieve unadulterated information about my topic.  I will be going to a clothing store to see how employees interact with customers. I plan to observe whether or not employees treat customers differently based on the customer's race. Will employees treat a black customer differently if they think no one is watching them? With the possibility of a differing greeting or lack of assistance due to race, I became very interested in doing this research. 

Here, Eat It.

A short article that I have recently come across was titled 'Dining While Black'. This immediately drew my attention. The article described a poll taken in North Carolina stating that "After polling 200 servers in 18 North Carolina restaurants, researchers found that a shocking 38.5% discriminated against black customers."

What surprised me the most about this statistic, was the fact that the servers openly admitted to giving black customers poorer service. The article then describes the server's reasoning for doing so. Waiters said that many gave black customers poorer service due to  their expectations that black diners would be poor tippers, demanding and rude.  How could someone who is paid to provide service to customers, be prejudice towards them simply because their race is "known" for being demanding and tipping less?

This stereotype of black-Americans is one that I have heard before, however have not had much personal experience to back it up. I have been out to dinner with one friend who was equally as polite as the rest of us at the table. However, when my friend's mother ordered, she was in fact very rude and demanding. I found that my differing experiences made it difficult to see whether or not this stereotype is actually that common among the black community. What do you think, are black people demanding and rude simply because they're.... black?

Read The Article Here!

I Can't Get Enough Fried Chicken!

A common stereotype affiliated with Black-Americans, is that all blacks love fried chicken and watermelon. This stereotype was taken too far when displayed in a newscast shown in 2009. The news update spoke of how the fast food chain Popeye's ran out of chicken on the day that they advertised to have a special deal.

Without seeing the video, this would sound like a completely appropriate news cast. However, when the news team interviewed those who went to Popeye's and left unhappy, I noticed something very interesting. Every single person interviewed was black. Black men, black women, black families, and not a single person of a different race.

Now, personally I love chicken and I'm about as white as one can be! I am pale with blonde hair...I am borderline albino. Yet I've been to Popeye's before! I found this newscast extremely racist because it portrayed the black community as the only people upset by the lack of chicken. I am sure that people of other races went to Popeye's that day, so why didn't the newscast interview them? Even if they did... why didn't they show their interviews to the public? 

My initial thought was that by interviewing black-Americans, the news cast would appeal more to those who eat chicken. Once again, this brings in the stereotype that all black people love chicken. Did anyone else find this newscast extremely racist?

Watch The Video Here!

You Do Know He's Black, Right?

Recently I came across an article posted a few days ago, since it is National Adoption Week.

In the UK, a young Black-man posed an article describing how he, a black man, grew up in a white household. His foster parents had to go through a much lengthier adoption process in order to adopt a child of a different race. His foster parents, Barbara and Eric had to fight to adopt the child that they fell in love with purely because they were white and he was black. 

"Their objections had nothing to do with moral fibre, financial stability or — perish the thought — the love the prospective parents had to offer. No, it was because I was black and they were white." 

Both Barbara and Eric were told that an ethnic match of an adopted child and their new parents was "desirable" for a family. Desirable? What exactly is desirable today? There are plenty of multicultural couples in the United States today! However, adopting a black child into a white family certainly defies the social norm.

This was not easy for people growing up to understand Ben's situation because it so greatly defies the norms in society:
"I have been called a coconut — an offensive term about being brown on the outside and white on the inside — more times than I care to remember by those from the black community who oppose my stance."

Now, even though this does take place in the UK, the same values can be seen in the US. How many white families do you see with a black child? It may not be desirable to the majority,  but to deny a family the right to adopt a child because of their skin color.... that is just wrong.

Read The Article Here!

The White Kids Always Get Picked Last

Why is it that we assume the black kid HAS to be good at sports? 

Black-American are generally stereotyped as more athletic than any other race. 

Before practice, a few kids on my swim team went into the gym at the Recreation Center and to play basketball. Usually, the court is fairly empty, however tonight it was occupied by five teenagers. 

The five boys on my swim who are generally more serious about playing basketball approached the 5 strangers and asked if they wanted to play. The ten boys chose one swimmer and one stranger as captains. Automatically, the first captain took the black kid...and so did the other captain. 

NOW THESE WERE COMPLETE STRANGERS. 

They had no idea what talent this kid may or may not possess, but since he was black he was automatically picked first.

The problem was... the two black kids were the most talented of all 10 players! They were faster runners, they stole the ball from the opposing team multiple times, and made almost every shot they took. Now, these two boys fit the black-american stereotype perfectly. Does that mean that the stereotype is actually an accurate description?

I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE...

...just kidding she's black she can go. 

I'm sure all of you are aware of the hit trilogy The Hunger Games.  These books have taken the film word by storm with its first becoming a movie. 

Now, after reading the books I know that I fell in love with the character of Rue due to the similarities between her and Katniss' sister Prim. Since the character of Rue took over the 'little sister role' while Katniss was in the actual games, a reader would imagine Rue and Prim to look similar. 

With this in mind, some viewers were not happy when the character of Rue being played by Amandla Stenberg, a 13 year old black girl. After watching this video I was in shock that since Rue was played by a black-American rather than a white-American, some people even refused to watch the movie ! And then proceeded to tweet about it! 

I never would have thought that this would be an issue for fans, what are your thoughts?

Watch The Video Here !

The Racist White Girl

Recently I was sitting my the couch with my friend who is a black-American and he brought up something that caught my attention. When flipping through the channels I automatically stopped when I saw that the show Friends was on. 

When I started singing “I’ll be there for youuuuuuuuuuu” he said “of course you watch this, you’re white”.

Excuse me?

I was in shock because I thought that everyone grew up watching Friends! Just because Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler, Ross, and Joey aren’t black it doesn’t mean that you can’t watch the show!

And then he proceeded to ask, which show I thought is better: My Wife and Kids, or Friends. Obviously I was going to choose Friends! Now, don’t get me wrong I find My Wife and Kids very funny as well, BUT IT DOES NOT COMPARE TO FRIENDS.

Somehow, since I preferred a show that happened to have mainly white-American characters as opposed to black-Americans, I unintentionally came off as being a “racist white girl”. Hmmmm…

'I Only Shot A [racial slur]'

Recently I found an article written on August 1st of this year that was more than a bit concerning. Being in a Catholic school we all know the 10 Commandments. The Sixth Commandment states "thou shalt not kill". Now, Catholic or not it is common sense that in our society murder is both morally wrong and illegal. 

However, one man by the name of Walton Henry Butler did not feel he did anything wrong when he shot Everett Gant due to the fact that Gant was a Black-American. When questioned by the police Butler admitted to shooting Gant but acted as if he had done nothing wrong.

How did he defend his actions? By stating that he "only shot a [racial slur]"

Even though Butler did in fact kill a man... he didn't think it was a big deal since the man was black. Granted, if he was a white man I would assume that Butler would be far more sympathetic when describing his actions. In fact, I believe this incident would have never even happened if Gant was white. Do you?

Read The Article Here!

Pants On The Ground

I chose the topic of Racism Against Black-Americans because on a daily basis I hear the words: 

"It's because I'm black isn't it?!"

I have a friend on my swim team who is a black-American and frequently uses that excuse when something does not go his way. After hearing this I always look around at the people around us... they are all minorities as well. 

My team mainly consists of Hispanics, Filipinos, and a few African Americans. Clearly, no one in the room was racist at all. Why was this such a common reaction  for him though?

Over the years black-Americans have came a long way from being enslaved, to one black-American becoming the President. However, racism still exists whether we like it or not. Why is it that we find ourselves locking our doors when driving through an all black neighborhood? Now, I'm not calling any of you readers racist, but we all know every once in a while we have made assumptions. 

That is what my blog is about, making assumptions. The next time you see a black man walking down the street wearing baggy jeans, think about it... is he a gang member? Or did he just forget to wear a belt this morning?



Watch Here! - Pants On The Ground