Cliche Main Menu Native Americans by Jasmin Diaz The Stereotype- Asian Americans African Americans Stereotypes that have been associated with African Americans Eurocentric Beauty Ideals for Females By Lisa Ma Works Cited

Introduction

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       In this scalar book, Cliches, the concept of the stereotype is deconstructed and disseminated into its fundamental roots of power, prejudice, and the surrounding global circumstances from which it stems. How vision visibility, the body and the current standards of aesthetics build the stereotype will be explored through the lens of several ethnicities including Native Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans, and European Americans. From the very first moment of contact between these smaller minority groups and the larger, whiter hegemony, a fantasized image has been conceived of what they, "the other", as a collective unit, embody, and more commonly focused on, what they lack in comparison. The outward phenotypic differences present have made it frightfully easy to dramatize, exaggerate, and exploit the bodies, customs, and identities of each of these races. Assembling all of these facets together has woven a sturdy and resilient quilt of prevalent racial ideologies that effortlessly and insidiously blankets the whole of society. These aspects create an ease of mutability that lends itself to a larger duality- neither truly one thing nor another. It is this characteristic which perpetuates these unseemly stereotypes by granting flexibility to people who are consequently able to twist and warp any situation involving racial difference to fit into their biased mental scheme of degrading views concerning individuals of other ethnicities. Stereotypes are a major component in the perpetuation of discrimination throughout the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Native Americans, Asian Americans, European Americans, and African Americans are prime examples of groups that continue to be affected both socially and politically by the adverse effects of racial ideology and racial difference.

      The pervasive damage done by stereotypes is prominently seen in the depiction and treatment of Native Americans in regards to their manner of dress and earthy lifestyle. The ambivalent attitudes towards the "otherness" of Native Americans will be elucidated by their portrayal in colonization, sports, and society throughout the centuries. Asian Americans have a history of discrimination since their first mass immigration to the united states. It is interesting to note that unlike other minorities in the United States Asian Americans, specifically the Chinese and Japanese, have experienced a fluctuation in the sentiment towards them. Through the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, Chinese and Japanese immigrants have been subject to a varying amount of prejudice and intolerance; however their social and political identity has elevated over time. African Americans and the distasteful labels of being thugs, predisposed to violence, and dressing in a certain fashion will be analyzed. In regards to European Americans, the notion of ideal beauty standards, the history of white biases, and how it came to be will be discussed and examined as well as the modern day trends influenced by these stereotypes and how it has shaped society.