In my experience, it depends on where you live. When I was younger, I attended schools in Soutch Carolina, where we had a pretty good mix of students that were white, black, Hispanic, and Asian. Most everyone got along with everyone else....but then again, we were all kids!! We moved to Minnesota when I was fourteen, and it was quite a culture shock....My town only had a handful of Aisans and Hispanics, and for the first couple of years, NO black families. My junior year, we got three, one of whom was a year ahead of me, the other two were in my class. And all three of them were some of the sweetest people I ever met.
But if you went walking around Minneapolis at night.....that was another story. In my experiences there, most of the black people were living up to the stereotypes. Fights and drug deals on the corners....rap music blaring out of car stereos....just to name a couple.
Now here I am back in the South....and my experiences have been a mixture of both. I've seen plenty of blacks that seem to be trying to live up to the stereotypes....but a majority of them are just as sweet as can be, and are no different from you and I in any way other than their skin color, which certainly doesn't make a significant difference in my mind. My husband's best friend is black, and his parents are like another set of parents to us.
Have you ever watched Chris Rock's "Bigger & Blacker"? I think he hit the nail on the head. The difference is that there are black people, and then there are n*****s. Yeesh, I hate that word. But it's true. Black people are the ones like the guys I went to school with, hubby's best friend, and his parents. No different from us, they're just trying to make a living and be happy. But the other are the ones like those I've encountered in places like Minneapolis, the ones that try to live up to and embrace the stereotypes.
But you can find that in all cultures....there are some white people that try to live up to certain stereotypes as well. It's a part of life, and at some point, you can't escape it. If people weren't so quick to stereotype anyone that's in any way different from them, I really don't think we'd have problems like we do today....but as long as a stereotype exists, there will be someone that tries to live up to that, and all it does is hold EVERYONE back.
