The group that caught my attention for this assignment were Asians. As I dug up the cultural artifacts for this group, I soon discovered a single story that seems to permeate the cultural perceptions of this group. The story: Asians are insanely smart.
Internet memes can be an excellent source to discover cultural perceptions. Almost every meme I found on Asians made some sort of comment on how smart they are. Although they are funny and meant to entertain, the memes are a direct result of cultural perceptions.
Moving away from humor and entertainment, I found examples of this story in the traditional media. This cover of Time Magazine along with a story from the New York Times, Asians: Too Smart for Their Own Good?, suggest that there is even some truth to the claims of the hysterical memes and jokes about smart Asians.
It matters that these messages are being sent because they are a broad stereotype and should not be applied to every Asian. Imagine the amount of ridicule and negative attention a stupid or even average-intelligence Asian would receive from this society when they discovered that he was not a genius. The results could be quite damaging.
This single story is limiting because it makes people view Asians as these sort of super-human calculators and in a way it dehumanizes them. Many people may see an Asian and think that they are simply robot-like computers, capable of great success but incapable of feelings or emotion.
In conclusion, although the single story of Asians in our society is based on some truth, it has grown into a stereotype that could have detrimental effects. What start out as jokes on the internet soon become the basic perception within the mind of the average citizen. When this happens, suddenly the joke is not so funny as an entire group suffers from a single story perception.
I was going to do asians I think your spot on with this
ReplyDeleteI love the juxtaposition of the very modern meme and the older TIME cover. It shows just how pervasive this single story is.
ReplyDeleteVery true. The stereotype of Asians being above-average in the intelligence department seems to be known worldwide. That's a lot of pressure and could be detrimental to those that don't meet the standard. I agree with this.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, but your post is very true. It's very prevalent. When I think of Asians, I almost always think of them being smart. Crazy.
ReplyDeleteIt's always the best and the worst who get the most attention so we probably don't notice the average students.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend in high school was a foreign exchange student from Korea. He was super smart. He was younger than me but in a more advanced math class. However, he was funny, outgoing, and enjoyed to act and play guitar. He was still a person, not just a robot. He was just smart.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely one of the most prevalent stereotypes around. Growing up in California, we had a lot of Asians at our school and this is definitely the stereotype that was out there. I really liked the link to the article from your post. Very good.
ReplyDeleteMy roommate is Chinese and he loved this! He said that his parents had a lot of influence on him having to live up to this expectation of being smart and always having to study. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteDude story of my life! The smart asian thing I think is border line stereotypical because I know hundreds of Asians and I have to meet one that is not smart haha. I think the one thing that gets misunderstood is that a lot of Asians(at least the ones I know) are simply diligent and driven to succeed which leads them to high levels of intellect.
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