Velasquez 1

Caleb Velasquez

Ms.Shaffer

English 1 Gate

5 February 2017

How Do Racial Labels Shape Individuals?

Humans are merely easy targets to the ravenous snares of racial labels. Human minds develop as

students attend schools and grow up, but racism and stereotypes play a crucial role in determining how

the next generation will be once they have fully grown up. Racism and stereotypes are not traits or actions

that children are born with, but are taught to place labels as people place labels on them as they mature.

Many people are confident that racism is just a controversy from the past because segregation happens

rarely in our modern society. Although, people still place racial labels on others which pushes both

parties self-esteems down. There is no reward for being racist other than being appreciated by other

people with racist attitudes; therefore, racism should not play a role in shaping the next generation of

workers as they develop in school. Even though schools are normally a safe haven of education, racial

stereotypes silently shape each student. Educators and parents may be unaware of this inevitable

revolution that has been hushed for so many years. The best solution to this producement of young people

having racism embedded into their minds is to teach them how to strategically and tactfully overcome

these stereotypical situations.

One example of a student from North Salinas High School who has been shaped by racial labels

is Aj who is a freshmen and is Asian. A few of the racist stereotypes placed onto him were that Asians

are expected to be good at math in general and that Asians eat cats and dogs. His response to the

stereotype of Asians eating cats and dogs were, Of course they place that stereotype on all of us, but they

do not understand that the people who are eating them are usually facing poverty. Eating cats and dogs

may seem to be an extreme to our civilized society because food sources are no longer a problem for us.

Not many people understand, but eating what we consider pets are just simple ways of staying alive.

This stereotype has shaped Aj by teaching him that nobody would understand him outside of his race;
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therefore, he has been confined to a small bubble of friends overtime. The second stereotype that has

shaped Aj is the label of Asians being expected to excel in mathematics. Even though this label has

allowed him to develop his skills in math and have immense intelligence in the subject, he still finds the

stereotype racist. Aj ponders why others expect an Asian student to excel in a specific subject just because

of others who may have proved their theory. Other people should not expect us to be good in a subject

just because of labels that have been influenced from television shows and even other Asian students. In

Shankar Vedantams article How a Self-Fulfilling Stereotype Can Drag Down Performance it states,

Similarly, telling test-takers that people of Asian descent score better that other students depresses the

performance of white men (9). Everyone is unique, but not many people can truly understand that; such

as shown evident in the article from the examples of white men not performing well when told that Asian

men would score better. Everyone is threatened by some type of stereotypical label, whether they are

aware of it or not.

Another example of a freshmen Asian student who attends North Salinas High being shaped by

racial stereotypes can be seen from Tims experiences. Whenever the topics of homework or school in

general come up, Tim is usually confronted with, You are smart enough to help us out since you are

Asian, right? He has not only heard this in highschool, but ever since middle school. People have used

him in order to get good grades or complete assignments, but it is rewarding in a way because it shows

that his peers have some goal to succeed in school. In contradiction, it shows Tim how others can

manipulate people in order to push themselves further. In a way, Tim has been used as a platform that

other students launch off of and spiral into a stressful downfall of work that they do not know how to

accomplish alone. As a result, both parties that lived out the stereotype have either learned to depend on

somebody else to accomplish academic goals or to have no trust in others in order to not allow ones skills

to be exploited for the benefit of others.

George, another freshmen from North High, is one more example of a student being shaped

over the years by a racist stereotype. He is ethnically Italian and believes he is considered as a nerd.

Because George is seen as a nerd by his peers and himself, he experiences the stereotype of how nerds are
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quiet and introverted. On the other hand, people expect him to be very talkative and expressive just

because he is Italian. He sees these stereotypes when he hangs out with his friends at school in general. As

students walk by his group, he can tell he is being judged and stereotyped. At North High, not all groups

are accepted by the hierarchy and over the years, George has felt that stereotypes have shaped him to have

a closer circle of friends. With less people he interacts with, the less likely he would be judged. As a result

of his decisions, George can freely express himself without judgements as long as he stays inside his close

circle. Even when he is confronted with racial situations, George has developed courage to shrug off the

labels that are simply snares that would drag him down. George has been shaped for the better by

ignoring the facts of racial stereotypes.

In conclusion, everyone is silently shaped by stereotypes that continue throughout life. People are

affected and not everyone can realize it. In reality, people allow the silent revolution of change to happen.

If stereotypes can motivate students to overcome them or can be ignored completely, how do racial

stereotypes silently shape the personalities of those affected by them? Racial stereotypes affect students

such as those at North High, showing how they can shape the optimistic students to become better while

at the same time it pushes those who do not care or are not independent, down. As Nelson Mandela once

said, No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his

religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love

comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. No matter the environment, people must

learn to shrug off racism in order to allow each other to develop and reach their truest potential.
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Works Cited

Vedantam, Shankar How a Self-Fulfilling Stereotype Can Drag Down Performance. Washington Post,

February 2, 2009

Mandela, Nelson No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his

background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to

love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.