...Drew Hayden Taylor, an Ojibway writer, achieves the role of literature by challenging the common beliefs of society in his essays. He takes the role of defending First Nations from the common criticisms and assumptions of Canadian society, in an attempt to change people’s perspectives. This is the purpose of many of his essays, each having their own problem or question. These essays raise the problems and issues First Nations people face that society may be unfamiliar with. Throughout his essays, he uses multiple logical strategies in his writing to support his arguments. Many of his essays deal with the concept of stereotyping. Taylor argues against these stereotypes and issues directed at First Nations people by using allusions, factual evidence,...
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...David Sedaris, the author of the essay " A Plague of Tics." His essay described his life as a long term sufferer of obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD for short. He not only allows the audiences to take a look at his life, but also leads the readers to relate his struggles. Furthermore, because this is a true story about the author, it makes you feel more connected with the character being described. He is writing about himself so it is easy for him to develop the character. In the essay, Sedaris mainly use irony, stereotypes and hyperbole to reel in his audience to make his life time full of tics and interesting. The first literary term is hyperbole. The sentences' Miss Chestnut said, " You're up and down like a flea. I turn my back...we don't leave our seats and lick things whenever we please" This is a use of hyperbole because it is exaggerated and undermined. Hyperbole was used throughout the essay when adults such as Miss Chestrut, Sedaris' mother and father. Sedaris also uses many examples of irony throughout his essay. For example, the paragraph 12 in the essay that is considered the irony because all the author wanted to do was to be at peace in this house, but he couldn't have peace until he made his route absolutely perfect. All he wants is to be free, but he is not letting himself. Stereotypes are littered throughout the essay. For example, the first use of a serotype is located in paragraph 11, Miss Chestnut is being stereotypical because she infers why Sedaris is misbehaved...
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...Public Space” Stereotypes affect different individuals regardless race, religion, sex, and creed. In “Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space,” Brent Staples demonstrates how a stereotype on race and sex can intervene with one another. Each point, whether a narrative or remark, can have positive and negative outcomes on the audience Staples is trying to enlighten. His thesis, the ability to alter public space through racial stereotypes, affected him as well as many other persons of his stature and skin color. It not only influenced lives of people like Staples, but infringed onto the “victims” of Staples and others like him. Staples explains his thesis throughout the essay through narratives of incidents in his life. He explains one encounter with a young white women, “on a deserted street, in an impoverished section of Chicago” (556). She glances back at him and disappears off into the dark. In paragraph two, Staples understands her thoughts of him being a mugger, a rapist, or even a murderer; but “her flight” made him feel “like an accomplice tyranny” (556). It also made him feel like he was “indistinguishable from the muggers,” and laid on him and “unnerving gulf between nighttime pedestrians—particularly women” and himself (556). This confrontation not only shows how a stereotype affected the thoughts of a female walking at night, but how it negatively touched a black male. Staples gives example after example showing a bigoted...
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...The Consequences of Stereotypes A stereotype is “...a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people.” (Cardwell, 1996). People stereotypes based on the environment they were raised in and the situations they have been put in. Another disadvantage is after prejudging someone you will make generalizations about more people in or out of their community. The consequences to stereotyping can be missing out on opportunities and relationships that could benefit you later in life. The positive side to stereotyping is that it will allow you to act rapidly in certain situations that might be harmful to one life. Stereotypes are assumptions based on different races and backgrounds, however. Gender stereotypes also exist. For example, it is stereotypical for men to say that women can’t drive, like wise it is stereotypical for women to say men don’t show their emotions. Most Stereotypes are false, due to the lack of inside knowledge. If one is not a part of that community than they will assume certain characteristics about that race. Sexual orientation stereotypes are also common. These stereotypes occur when you have negative views on gays, lesbians, and transgender individuals. People who have these negative views are usually known to be homophobic. A common stereotype about gay people is that they are all hostile. Even if the...
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...Macaulay and Rachel Rafelman thru their essays are trying to eradicate the stereotype, they are both almost speaking about the subject in their essays and the tone in the essays are almost the same, funny and at the same time keeping a serious tone underneath, sexism seems also to be a common point for these two author it seems to be the center of pretty much everything they’re talking about. Stereotype in the both essay as been pointed out and the authors seems to take people to that point where they are convicted enough to stop doing that thing which is stereotype not only that but they uses different other article to point to point that and say what think about it, for example, Ronald Macaulay; in his essay “Sex difference” uses novel and different other article to point the stereotype but not only that he also argues about it just as Rachel Rafelman in her essay “Party Line” uses interviews that she makes or other colleague Article to pointed that out and talk about it or argue about it, both author stick with the same idea that lead us to conclude that they are both talking about the same subject but just in two different environment, for example Rafelman in her essay she is at A Gala and Macaulay is just using Article, novel, journal to talk about the subject . In these essays the authors tone is what we can describe as having two side, funny and serious at the same time the reason why I am saying this is because in the essay the author are using it to keep use entertain...
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...How Stereotypes Affect Us In this video Claude Steele tells about his research on stereotype threat and the way it affects us. Each of us has social identities such as gender, age, race, sexuality etc. Stereotype threat is an experience of being in situation or doing something for which a negative stereotype about one of your identities is relevant. African American can be seen as a violent person in a neighborhood with predominantly white people or white student can be perceived as a racist in class that is predominantly nonwhite, that are some of examples of stereotype threat. Dealing with things, because of particular identity in particular place that what makes the identity real. We often have fear to be judged in terms of negative stereotype. That can make us sad and confused, but also it can affect our behavior and performance! One of experiments was related to stereotype that women are not as good in math as men. Both women and men were taking math exam sitting in one room. Women showed worse results than men. That happened, because women were worried about this stereotype (often unconsciously), so they have to put double efforts to perform under this pressure. But when before test participants were told that in this particular test everyone (men and women) do equally all the time, women get same good results as men! Same situation was with IQ test for white and black participants. Black got lower results when were told that this is a test to measure intelligence...
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...contrast the ideas expressed in the two texts. To what extent do these texts show that national and cultural stereotypes are no longer a useful way of examining the human condition and economic activity? Choose an element in the texts which you find interesting and explain your reaction to it by giving examples from your own experience. It is commonly regarded that globalization is a world trend today, thus national and cultural stereotypes are drawing attention. Before reading, the definition of stereotype should be clarified. Stereotypes are traits but different from the country, language, culture and other factors. Furthermore, stereotype is ‘a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing’ (Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press, 2014). This essay will compare and contrast the ideas from two articles named ‘Intercultural communication for sale’ (Piller, 2011) and ‘East meets West: How the brains unites us all’ (Yong, 2009), then consider whether stereotypes are useful to examine people’s mind and business activities. It is shown in two texts that national stereotype is a common topic that both Piller and Yong discussed in their articles. Yong (2009) refers to stereotypes that easterners have a holistic world view, while westerners tend to think more analytically. Piller (2011) uses the ideas of stereotypes and shows how they can be exploited to help sell products. Moreover, both Piller and Yong have mentioned or...
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...emphasizes the problems with a story being told from just one perspective. Due to stereotypes many misconceptions have occurred due to only one side of the story being shared. In Adichie’s speech, she uses herself as a main example. Many people in America saw Adichie as an impoverished, uneducated Nigerian woman who was lucky enough to get out of Africa and start a better life in America. This viewpoint is not the blame of the individual, but the media the individual has been exposed too. The stereotypical African person is an untrue representation that most people in America have. Learning about the world is good for becoming more diverse, but if the information shared is one sided the experience may become limited because the person learning will become misinformed on a certain culture, person, or beliefs. Adichie’s goal in her speech was to educate the viewers on the problems with only hearing one side of a situation. In her speech she gives personal examples of situations where a person has assumed Adichie is a certain way due to stereotypes the person has learned. Adichie also shares personal examples of when she has assumed something about another person due to the stereotypes she has picked up over time. Adichie explains her speech that even though the stereotypes people have of certain cultures are misrepresented sometimes, still hold truth to some extend. Again, Adichie uses personal example to back up her claim. Many people in America have stereotypical thoughts of people...
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...Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” is about the racist stereotypes that she has encountered in her life. Cofer is known for the publishing of three collections of poetry, four essay collections, four novels, and short story collections. Cofer is currently “Regents’ and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia” (230). In this essay Cofer often experiences being stereotyped based off her beauty and ethnic background. Cofer is a beautiful Hispanic woman “who so obviously belongs to Rita Moreno’s gene pool” (231), as she stated in the beginning of the essay. Cofer begins the essay by relating an experience where a drunk man started singing "Maria”, from "Westside Story” (231) to her, while she is on a bus trip to London from Oxford. Cofer tries to keep her cool even though everyone around her finds it entertaining. Cofer states “I managed my version of an English smile: no show of teeth, no extreme contortions of facial muscles. . .” (231). At this moment, Cofer is aggravated by the actions of the drunk man but tries to keep her composure. Cofer feels that just because she is beautiful that does not...
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...thinking processes. Social cognition assumes important roles such as decision making and perception of information in everyday life and therefore comprises of cognitive structures that influence and are influenced by the happenings in the social world. From this individual beings form shortcuts to ease the processing of information this is termed as being social misers towards a cognitive economy. This is due to a limitation in cognitive capacity and the existence of mental structural guides of cognition Examples of this shortcut is schemas. These categories simplify concepts. categorisation is done by grouping similar traits together that forms cognitive economy(Bruner et al.,1956) however it is not always that a common factor exist in a category this is known as the prototypical approach(Barsalou, 1991). Schemas and heuristics shape the categorisation process. This essay will look at schema and heuristics and examples of the same giving examples and evaluation for each. First this essay will look at schemas A schema can be defined as a packet of information containing fixed values and alternative values to represent the knowledge and experiences embodied, that an individual experiences in the world. (Gross 2010). Schemas enable encoding of large information in a short period of time. There are four types of schemas. Person schemas that comprise of attributes and skills that often take form of what is attributed to an individual. Another is event schemas that are also called cognitive...
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...Expressive Essay (Observation, Ethnography or Memoir) First Draft ENC 1101 – CR Junkins Purpose: What do I want the student to do? In this course, we will explore the two most commonly used forms of writing for college students: expressive writing and academic writing. Expressive writing captures what is important to the writer. In order to succeed, writers must understand themselves. Such writing is deeply personal. Expressive writing is designed to prepare students for writing outside academics—communicating feelings and observations, beliefs and opinions, community and individuality—all skill sets that will enable students to succeed in any discipline or career path. From a learning perspective, expressive writing is often an easier form of writing than academic. It allows students to begin working with such concepts as language, reasoning and mechanics while working with material they find worth discussing. In this assignment, I want students to carefully examine both themselves and their community. What makes their community unique? What is their place within the community? How did their unique, individual personality take shape? Project Overview: How do I want the student to do the assignment? Component One: Personal Students will choose to write on one of the following three topics: • One’s sense of place (observation) • One’s place within a community (ethnography) • One’s relationship to an event from the past (memoir) ...
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...Writing and Literary Critique of Asian/Pacific American Literature Throughout the history of the United States media, there are common stereotypes of females in films that are presented in the short story by Fong, Charlie Chan’ No More. I believe that the roles of Asian Americans are limited in films, such as gender and sexuality, by stereotyping females. Asian Americans are being portrayed as negative images through various media, from books, films, plays, and even television. “The audience would realize that media views Asians and Asian Americans as others that include exoticized women, asexual men, a yellow peril threat to the United States” (Ono & Pham, 2009). Throughout this essay, I am referencing the article by Fong, Charlie Chan’ No More, and Moon, a poem by Marilyn Chin, where they both talk about sexuality and gender. “Asian women, have often been depicted as almost completely sexual” (Fong, 177). In the short story as well as the poem, they can manipulate the messages of gender and sexuality of Asian American females that are being represented in both stories. Throughout Fong’s short story, there is a lot of controversy whether or not Asian American females are being portrayed with negative images, for example as sex objects. I also researched instances on the counter actions taken by Asian American females that protest the negative images, such as the dragon lady. I believe that Asian American females are being portrayed with such negative images, such as...
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...Commercial Essay Assignment As consumers in our society, many of us are almost immune to the constant barrage of assorted advertisements bombarding us via billboards, television, radio, the Internet, email, and snail mail. Some of these ads are trivial--which cola to drink or which deodorant to use. Some deal with important issues like feeding the hungry or preservation of the rain forests. Although we're exposed to all types of ads daily, we have effectively trained ourselves to filter them out. Who doesn't grab the remote when the television commercial comes on? However, as annoying as they may be, all these ads speak volumes about the nature of our society. Although this situation is the "norm" for us, have you ever thought about how confusing all these different advertisements might be for beings from another planet? Are deodorant soaps or dandruff shampoos as important as feeding starving children? What effect might such ads have on their opinions about our society? Would visitors from outer space have a positive or negative overall image of us from the ads? For this assignment, you'll need to spend 2 hours watching television, but you’re ONLY going to watch the commercials! First, record which channel you're watching. Pick the local affiliate of one of the major television stations only: CBS, NBC, or ABC. If you live in Odessa or Midland, you can watch KOSA, KMID, or KWES. No cable or PBS stations. Then spend two hours watching commercials: Keep track...
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...Stereotyping Perpetuates Racism Stereotype is defined by Merriam-Webster as “something conforming to a fixed or general pattern; especially: a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment” (Merriam-Webster, 2017). The sociological definition is “an oversimplified, generally over-exaggerated belief that all members of a certain group act and think in the same fashion“ (Publishing, 2017). I believe there is a commonly missed component in those definitions that can create unexpected and unforeseen issues. Often with these issues, one can find misunderstandings, as well as the perpetuation of issues like racism. These problems...
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...worse.” Brent shares instances of people locking their car doors or crossing the street when he walked by, but he says he can’t blame them, as “young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of… violence.” Ultimately, the reader empathizes with Brent Staples and others in his position. The reader comes to consider a city sidewalk or a deserted street from a different perspective. In his essay, “Black Men and Public Space,” Brent Staples expresses his shock and dismay upon discovering that, as a black man of large stature, his mere physical presence inspires fear in strangers. Obviously a gentle, harmless person, Staples’ view of himself is inconsistent with stereotypes, and he convinces the reader that he is anything but stereotypical. Brent Staples acknowledges that stereotypes are often deserved, but he relates personal stories and shares his emotions, allowing readers to put themselves in his place. Additionally, Staples points out the fact that being feared by others is often dangerous. Staples’s purpose is to reduce the stereotype for the group of blacks which is that not all the black men are dangerous. Staples is conveying a message to the public to not to jump to conclusions about people’s skin colors, appearance, and by their behavior. I think the authors purpose of the story is to inform his readers about how he never felt that feeling of not being satisfactory in the eyes of the public. Even thou the author does not blame people for...
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