This video is a clip from a popular television show called "What Would You Do?". The show sets up elaborate scenarios with actors to see how the average person reacts to them. In this scenario, the show has two actors, one white and one black, pretend to steal a bike in a park. While the white actor steals the bike, over a hundred people pass him in an hour, and only one couple actually attempts to stop him. Even after admitting that the bike is not his, people still walk away from the actor and let him continue. However, immediately after the black actor begins to steal the bike, someone races over to stop him. The black actor uses the same dialogue that the white actor does, but nearly nobody just walks away and lets him continue to steal the bike. We see in the video several people immediately call the police when they see the black actor, but nobody calls the police on the white actor.
In The Help, Kathryn Stockett writes about the many stereotypes about black people. In Jackson, the blacks are considered to be unintelligent, dirty, and lazy. Hilly Holbrook hopes to pass a bill called the "Home Sanitation Initiative" to keep white people from catching "colored diseases". Hilly says, "All these houses they’re building without maid’s quarters? It’s just plain dangerous. Everybody knows they carry different kinds of diseases than we do" (8). Stockett shows blatant racism like this through everyday conversations, actions, and laws in The Help.
While today we know that these stereotypes are untrue, it doesn't mean that they aren't enforced. This video shows how racial stereotypes are still influencing our culture today. I looked further into crime statistics and found some data from the FBI's website. The data said that in 2011, white people committed 69% of crime in the U.S while black people committed 28%. So why, when whites commit the most crime in our country, are people so much more likely to call the police on a black criminal than a white one? This is because of racial stereotypes, like the ones we see in The Help. We don't say that blacks are dirty and diseased anymore, like Ms. Hilly, but instead call them thugs and criminals. Racial stereotypes continue to plague our nation despite our progress since the 1960s.
**the website where I found my data: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-43
In The Help, Kathryn Stockett writes about the many stereotypes about black people. In Jackson, the blacks are considered to be unintelligent, dirty, and lazy. Hilly Holbrook hopes to pass a bill called the "Home Sanitation Initiative" to keep white people from catching "colored diseases". Hilly says, "All these houses they’re building without maid’s quarters? It’s just plain dangerous. Everybody knows they carry different kinds of diseases than we do" (8). Stockett shows blatant racism like this through everyday conversations, actions, and laws in The Help.
While today we know that these stereotypes are untrue, it doesn't mean that they aren't enforced. This video shows how racial stereotypes are still influencing our culture today. I looked further into crime statistics and found some data from the FBI's website. The data said that in 2011, white people committed 69% of crime in the U.S while black people committed 28%. So why, when whites commit the most crime in our country, are people so much more likely to call the police on a black criminal than a white one? This is because of racial stereotypes, like the ones we see in The Help. We don't say that blacks are dirty and diseased anymore, like Ms. Hilly, but instead call them thugs and criminals. Racial stereotypes continue to plague our nation despite our progress since the 1960s.
**the website where I found my data: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-43