There's several stereotypes that I don't really get... Just curious



The term "red neck"... I don't really know where that came from


Mexicans being lazy...I'm Latino and NOT lazy, also don't know about the orgin


Blacks with fried chicken & watermelon... a lot of people (white, black, asians, hispanics, etc.) eat 'em  :)

Gays with show tunes & Cher, I like rock operas, own a show tunes CD from a stage actress/pop singer, and I'm straight

Italians with the whole mobster/"Sopranos" image




No offense to anybody of any race, gender, religion, etc. I'm just curious


Disclaimer: I'm not trying to post a flame war. I'm just wondering on where these stereotypes come from.

Well, all stereotypes exist for a reason.. maybe someone knew some lazy Mexicans and said to his friends "Hey, Mexicans are lazy!" and they knew the same Mexicans and agreed, cause they knew the same Mexicans.. and it spread.

Maybe fried chicken and watermelon sell well in African-American communities...

I think the gay thing... Cher is somewhat feminine music, I guess? I haven't heard much... so maybe it's associated with homosexual men, which are stereotyped as feminine.

And Italian Mobsters? Maybe the Italian Mafia?

When I was a kid we learned at school that stereotypes occur because they are common examples of a certain type of person/situation. They become stereotypes because people then assume that ALL of that type of person/situation (or whatever) ARE like the most common types. No matter how out of date/incorrect they are now, once they must have had a grain of truth.

Thats what they told us anyway...

Well, the Mexicans being lazy, I'm guessing, comes from the number of Mexicans on welfare and the ones who can't work because they are illegal, and maybe also the Mexican women who don't work outside the home.  Nowadays to many people, able-bodied adult not working = lazy.

That stereotype could totally be countered though... when you see someone doing very labor-intensive work outdoors on a 100 degree summer day, chances are, they are Mexican too, which I would hardly classify as lazy.

But, then again... my husband is Mexican.  He has worked since he was 14 years old, and has had steady work ever since.. but when he gets home from work and plants himself in his recliner, he starts with "Babe, bring me a water?"  "Babe, can you get me a piece of pie?"

That, is LAZY! ;D

The term "red neck" discribes people from the south who wear tee-shirts and keep their hair short. They spend time outside and their necks get sunburnt-thus "Red neck".


But, I thought gays loved Judy Garland-not Cher.  :D  Just kidding-no offense to any gay who love Judy or Cher for that matter.





Cat

But, I thought gays loved Judy Garland-not Cher.  :D  Just kidding-no offense to any gay who love Judy or Cher for that matter.





Cat


Funny, I always thought they liked Abba.  (Especially Dancing Queen) :D

Its not just Mexicans who are thought lazy.  In general we industrial (not necessarilly industrious) people see peasants in general as lazy because, like our peasant and artisan ancesators, they work according to the dictates of the seasons, and sometimes, seemingly, have little to do. 

In slavery days, many masters allowed their slaves to cultivate small plots for  their own use (after "work"), and raise chickens and pigs.  Watermellons are easy to grow, as are chickens, and both provided a break from the very dull (and very cheap) fare provided by the masters (and reduced the cost of feeding their slaves).

Cat got the "red neck" thing right.

As to Italians (and no offence intended), do the names Al Capone and Lucky Luciano ring a bell?  Have you not seen The Godfather?  Not to say that there aren't major gangsters of other nationalities by any means - Mayer Lanski, Buggsy Seagal, and lots more.

The gay thing I don't profess to understand.  I too (straight as an arrow) like some of Cher's music.

It's funny that people find Mexicans lazy. Where I live it is opposite. I live in the home town of Hormel foods. Because the packaging plant and the meat slaughtering plant get fairly decent wages and benefits with really no schooling and no experience needed, we got many, many Hispanics that come here to work. Many work and make a bunch of money and send it back home and some eventually head back home themselves. Some stay. One thing is though, they will do any job needed and will do it well. They don't take it for granted. And they are the ones who stay and work and can handle the work, which can be tough. So I would say probably 80% of the plant is Hispanic people.

The redneck has racist connotations as well.  Upper class whtes didn't have to work out in the sun all day.  Blacks and lower class whites did.  Sunburn contrasts more with light skin than with dark skin, hence, "redneck."  The owning class in the South pitted blacks against whites to prevent working class solidarity.  Slave owners taught the enslaved blacks that even they were a cut above those p*ss-pot poor white dirt farmers.  You may be a ni**r, but at least you're not a redneck!
The term "cracker" for white people has nothing to do with Saltines.  A cracker was a lousy person who picked lice out of his hair and "cracked" them between his fingers to kill them.  People of all races got lice in the old days.  The association of "cracker" with white people probably comes from notions among blacks about whites being particularly unclean.

Don Carlos is correct, the rich love to describe the poor as "lazy."  This goes back centuries.  Some stereotypes about lassitude come from misunderstandings about culture.  In some cultures it is customary to take an afternoon nap, as in the Spanish "siesta."  When the British saw the Spaniards nodding off everywhere at two in the afternoon, they said, "look at those lazy Spaniards!"

When the Europeans colonized Africa, they looked contemptuously upon native work habits.  When they saw African farmers hanging around their huts in the middle of the day and drinking beer.  the Europeans called them lazy.  They said this was a reaon Africans didn't "prosper," and by extension a sign of racial inferiority.  From the African's point of view, you'd have to be crazy to go out and work in the 100 degree tropical heat.  You stored up your energy during the day, and did chores at sundown when temperatures cooled off.  From there a phrase was born, "mad dogs and Englishmen go out into the midday sun."
BTW, as far as "prosperity" was concerned, the rich soils of sub-Saharan Africa had given the indegenous cultures everything they needed for as long as anyone could remember.  Of course, the Africans had a different concept of "need" from the Europeans and lived in relative peace with one another for hundreds of years.

It's funny, the Italian mafia still exists, but it's a mere shadow of what it was in previous generations.  Russians and Chinese organized crime syndicates are on the rise in this country, yet it's still the Italians that get the show-biz attention, as with "The Sapranos."  
For a few different reasons, I don't think either a show called the "Tchenkos," about a Russian crime family from Brighton Beach, or the "Wangs" of Seattle would go over too well!

They love both of them....supposedly the Cher thing got started because at certain times in her life, she's looked like a drag queen (according to a gay friend of mine). 

I also remember hearing growing up in a largely (not majority, but at least 1/3) Hispanic town that the "lazy Mexican" thing is because of "siestas".  Not that they're the only nationality in the world that has them, but probably because it's more well known.

The blacks & fried chicken/watermelon thing started in the South a loooooong time ago.  My grandma grew up in a poor area with quite a few blacks and told me they would eat chicken because it was cheaper than red meat and in the old days (some still do today), Southerners fried EVERYTHING.  The watermelon stuff got started down south too because they were abundant (and cheap & easy to grow) and you could feed many people with 1 watermelon.

Actually, I don't know if Mexicans ever did the Siesta, I was just using that as an example.

I'm a New England WASP, they say these ridiculous things about us, like we're uptight, we don't know how to express ourselves emotionally, we're not physically demonstrative, we're have problems with constipation, we like clam chowder,  go on and on about our ancestors on the Mayflower, we like to hunt for bargains...
Oh, wait a sec, I printed out the "IT'S TRUE!" list...
;D

Trust me, they do.  But, so do Spaniards, Italians as well as others.  Try to find a shop open in Italy around 2 p.m.  It's nearly impossible.

I think stereotypes are inevitable, no matter WHAT it's based on.  People who work with computers are stereotyped as "geeks", jocks and cheerleaders are assumed to be "dumb" (trust me, first hand experience with this one), artists are all depressed, the list goes on...



In Greece you can't find an open shop around 2 either. I think the siesta comes from the fact that during the day it gets very hot in many areas of the world. So, rather than working out when the sun is the hottest, they take a nap-and then they are up all night partying.  ;D  Which usually means that they need a nap the next day.  ;)




Cat

In Greece you can't find an open shop around 2 either. I think the siesta comes from the fact that during the day it gets very hot in many areas of the world. So, rather than working out when the sun is the hottest, they take a nap-and then they are up all night partying.  ;D  Which usually means that they need a nap the next day.  ;)




Cat


When I was about 15 I spent the summer in Puerto Rico with relatives.  Some folks there took siestas as well.  I remember one with my uncle's x wife...no, that's for the OTHER board. ;)

Like Max said, "mad dogs and Englishmen..." 

I think the cultures that have siestas (or the local equivalent) have the right idea.  A little nap makes you more rested for the afternoon.  I know that towards the end of the day I get tired and a nap would work wonders with my productivity.

Hell, I don't work and a nap in the afternoon would do me wonders ;D ;D


Chasing kids will do that to ya. ;)

It doesn't matter if people take a siesta or not. A lot of Europeans take long lunches. You can make something bad out of anything.  If people work with no break you can say oh there just greedy for money.  You make something bad out of something because you just want an excuse to make somebody out to be lower than you.

If they don't work don't pay them.  That makes sense.  It doesn't have anything to do with their cuture.

The term "cracker" for white people has nothing to do with Saltines.  A cracker was a lousy person who picked lice out of his hair and "cracked" them between his fingers to kill them.  People of all races got lice in the old days.  The association of "cracker" with white people probably comes from notions among blacks about whites being particularly unclean.


Actually, that is one origin that I have never heard of.  And depending on the region, the term "Cracker" actually has many different sources.

In the Carolinas, the term "Cracker" came as a word to use for the Foreman of a slave gang, for the sound his whip made.  In Georgia, it came from the moonshine trade.  "Crackers" were people who "cracked" their corn, which was done before it was turned into Moonshine.

In Florida, "Cracker" was another term for "Cowboy".  There was a fairly large cattle trade in the region at one time, and the wranglers were constantly having to chase cattle out of the thick brush.  They used very long (9 feet and longer) whips that they would crack over the heads of the cattle to chase them out.  Ironically, in Northern Florida, the term 100 years ago was applied to ANY cattle wrangler, black and white alike.  So in that region, there were "Black Crackers".

The most recent return of the name is often attributed to saltine crackers.  This origin is similar to the "White Bread" or "Mayonaise" terms that are often used.

I myself have never heard the lice origin.  Since at the turn of the century almost everybody suffered from lice, that does not make as much sense to me.

In slavery days, many masters allowed their slaves to cultivate small plots for  their own use (after "work"), and raise chickens and pigs.  Watermellons are easy to grow, as are chickens, and both provided a break from the very dull (and very cheap) fare provided by the masters (and reduced the cost of feeding their slaves).


Those crops are also very easy to grow, requiring almost no care.  Watermellong bulls almost all of it's moisture from the ground and air, so irrigation is not as important.  Chickens and pigs will largely feed themselves, quite often on our garbage.  This makes them ideal for low-labor farming (which when you work 10+ hours a day on somebody else's feel, you have little time left for your own).

And don't forget "Chitlings".  There is at least 1 fast food chicken franchise in the South (Bojangles) that still offers them for sale.  Originally these were the leftover parts of the pig (or chickens) that the "Master" did not want.  In some areas, they are still considered a delicacy.


Cat got the "red neck" thing right.


That she did.  It is much the same reason that "Ladies" would carry umbrellas and use powder and makeup to appear "
white".  REAL ladies did not work in the sun, they had people to do that for them.  Much the opposite of today, where white skin is out and a tan is the thing to have.


The gay thing I don't profess to understand.  I too (straight as an arrow) like some of Cher's music.


From what I was told a few years ago, it started because they had voices that were easy to imitate by "Female Impersonators".  Women with husky voices like Judy or Cher are easy for Transvestite performers.  There is even a club in North Hollywoodcalled the "Queen Mary", that has had female impersonators on stage since the 1950's, and it is still going strong.

Another reason I hear is that a lot of homosexual men are attracted to show business.  Since most can't just move to Hollywood, a lot work in local theatre.  And of course, one of the buggest draws in them has always been musicals.  We had a "Musical Group" that I worked with in the Antelope Valley in California, and I was one of the minority.  Of the 20 guys that worked in it, only 3 or 4 of us were not bisexual or homosexual.  I will not even mention the male performer in the group who had a shrine to Leonardo DiCaprio in his room.  8)

Hell, I don't work and a nap in the afternoon would do me wonders ;D ;D


I beg to differ.  EVERY mother is a working mother.

There is a fine line between facts and stereotypes. All of the stupid people have found a way across.

that's my two cents.