Stereotype Threat

Disclaimer: This is a sensitive topic to many, including myself.

The Civil Rights Act was passed 51 years ago. Think about that for a second. That was within many of our (or our parents) lifetimes. That fact simply astounds me.

I think about my grandmother, one of the strongest people I know. She, an African American woman, raised three kids as a single mother in the Jim Crow south. Yet, we can sit down together now, any place in the world, and experience life as if that burden has been lifted.

I live a life of such privilege compared to my parents; and compared to my grandmother… I can’t even fathom. My parents marriage would not have even been legal, and I, a product of our changing law, would not have existed. To grow up with these burdens and excel in a crowd of people who have experienced these freedoms since inception is quite the task.

Growing up, I was always the only ‘black’ kid in the class. I was never recognized as such. I pretty much went to the same school with the same group of people for thirteen years. I was however cast for many of minority roles in school plays and performances, including a 7 year old’s rendition of Crispus Attucks, the first victim of the Boston Massacre. I only look back on it today and laugh, I never really paid much attention to it growing up.

So, to answer the question, “Have I ever faced discrimination?”, yes, I have. My parents raised me to essentially be ‘race-blind’ so it wasn’t until much later than I realized that I was being treated differently for reasons that I couldn’t explain. Why some people would treat me with hostility without provocation. Why I had to wear nicer looking clothes when I go for runs in my own neighborhood, to avoid the police being called for “suspicious activity”... again. Why I’m seen as different.

For most, young African Americans growing up today in the United States, the luxury of being able to hide or simply to be unaware of one’s racial identity, is impossible. It is a burden that must be carried, a burden carried by their parents, and their parents before them. It has an influence on every aspect of your life, no matter how minute it may seem.

In college, I wrote about the effects of affirmative action on young minorities. My conclusion, was rather controversial, in that, it may have created a deeper chasm in the perception of equality. It wasn’t that these students didn’t do well. In fact, they achieved higher marks than many of their peers, but when self selecting and asked to determine the strengths of their own abilities, many had doubts. This is the stereotype threat.

To those of a minority community, the stereotype threat is a very real and very tangible phenomenon. It is something that we all have experienced even if we aren’t consciously aware. It’s a certain sense of ourselves that we fear.

The emotion of this fear and anxiety has an effect on us. We see objects and expectations and morph them into a standard cultural view. If we don’t see ourselves fitting within that mold, our worries distract our mental thought process. If we are expected to underperform, we will underperform because our fears are having an overarching influence on the entirety of self. This is a really wordy way of describing “spotlight anxiety.” Another issue worth mentioning is a psychological state called “John Henryism” where the student holds rigidly to the idea that discrimination and disadvantage can be overcome with hard work and active persistence. In reality, it’s just not that easy.

At the present moment, there really isn’t a viable solution. I would argue actually that policies such as Affirmative Action have made the Stereotype Threat even greater. The most important factor is trust. Minorities, such as myself, need to trust in themselves and they need to trust that others will evaluate them without the basis of race. We may feel that it's "on us" to prove stereotypes wrong - but it's not. It's on us, to simply be true to ourselves and live our lives the best we can.