Eureka #2

Eureka #2

This morning while watching the news I had a Eureka moment. I saw the segment on the news about the woman from Pennsylvania who falsely claimed that both she and her daughter were abducted by two black men. Later the police saw her picture on cameras in the airport terminal and located her in Florida.The segment caught my attention because it said that she was stereotyping. Why is it that she had to say that two black men abducted her, why couldn't she just have said that she and her daughter were abducted by two men? She deemed it necessary to say that it was two black men; therefore, stereotyping.I thought about a section in our text that was titled "Language Organizes Perceptions of Gender" on pg. 122, which included stereotyping. The text provides a definition of stereotyping (pg. 123)and says that it is "a generalization about an entire class of phenomena based on some knowledge of some members of the class". I believe that she felt by saying what she said her story might seem more believeable or the police would heighten the search since she was with a child. It also shows how even in today's society people still feel the need to accuse certain people of certain races with false accusations.Ilia
May 29, 2009 6:13 PM