What is the worst stereotype you've come across?

Question

The reason why I'm asking is because I was bored and re-watched Rush Hour 2 and Chris Tucker says to Jackie Chan "all ya'll look alike". It doesn't bother me that much because I know we do not look alike. It's just sometimes hard to distinguish one Asian Pacific from another(like how can you tell if someone is from Japan, Korea, China, etc). I'm not being racist at all if this offends anyone. I'm Asian born in the US and growing up I got all of it.

Answer 1

I agree with Mel. It's not only asians. If you see a caucasian person on the streets, can you tell if s/he is french, german, irish, canadian, australian, english, etc??? You can't, so we just call them white. If you see a hispanic person, can you tell it s/he is mexican, guatemalan, brazilian, spanish, etc??? No, you can't. So it's not just asians.

I remember I once called this girl mexican when she was guatemalan and she got offended just like how i did when someone called me chinese when i'm korean

Answer 2

well ya do kinda look alike...just kidding...if i went to china i would probably catch alot of **** for being white. the worst stereotype i get is that...mmm...dont know...sucks for u.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, there are plenty to go around. I see and hear them on American TV, in movies, on radio, and more subtle reflections of racist beliefs and stereotypes in the way people act.

And, right now, people of Asian descent are the butt of many jokes in many American movies. There are virtually no Asian main characters that don't know martial arts, and usually Asians fit the stereotypes -- the nerd, the martial arts experts, the monk, the dragon lady, the sexless guy, the nameless and faceless bad guy soldier, the nameless and faceless gang member.

Not too long ago, a certain radio station in New York has a "personality" who was behind the Tsunami Song, which is blatantly racist, making fun on the tsunami in Indonesia and uses racist terms to refer to Asians. And was the host punished or fired? Nope.

If you think that blurb in Rush Hour is bad, then you need to watch more American movies that have Asian characters in them. If you go back far enough, those "Asian" characters were played by whites in yellowface. And the portrayals were unjustifiably racist.

Raiders of the Lost Ark unjustifiably has a white guy wearing yellowface -- prosthetics on his face so he looks "Asian."

There's Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles.

There's Mickey Rooney's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

There's the Asian gangbangers in Hancock.

And there's another form of stereotyping/racism going on.

Look at that recent movie 21. The true book it was "based" on was about a group of MIT students, the three main protagonists being of Asian descent. And when the movie gets made, the main guy it was based on is played by a white actor. And while there are two Asian-Americans in the cast, they're supporting characters.

Asian-American men are rarely, if ever, seen. But Asian-American women are routinely paired up with white anchors on TV newscasts.

Those are just some of the ones in entertainment.

Socially, there are plenty of people who discriminate against Asians, often in subtle ways, which can be as or more infuriating than more blatant racism, because they're insidious.

Answer 4

I'm not really answering the question, just commenting on it...

I think the "You all look alike" thing happens to every race. When I was younger I thought that about african-american people. I know better now, but at that age I didn't see people of that color often and didn't take time to notice differences. I'm sure many other races look at white american girls like myself and say we all look alike. I think many people mean no harm when they say that, they just have never taken the time to see what makes other races look different from eachother.  

Answer 5

Americans probably say that because there aren't that many Asians in the united states. Mainly in Cali, some on the east coast, and sprinkled throughout. Therefore most people probably don't even interact with an Asian, and think they "all look alike" because they hardly see any. In my area we have a large Hmong population. So I could tell per say the difference between a Hmong and a Chinese. Not until I went to Japan that I could distinguish Japanese from Korean, Chinese, and Hmong. If I were to meet any other person from say Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. I wouldn't be able to tell because I've never lived around them.

If it makes you feel any better when I went to a African festival, I had a hard time finding my friends because "everyone looked alike". (I live in a multi-cultural area, its just odd to me when i see a mass amount of one ethnic group).

Answer 6

A lot of western women believe that Asian babies are abused, just because they have this bluish/greenish marks on their bottom.  They are not abused and these marks are not bruises!  If you were Asians, like Chinese, Korean or Japanese, etc., we all had these Mongoloid markings when we were babies.  They disappear as we get older.  I thought that it was strange thing to say.  Such ignorance!