Have you ever been followed in a store because of the color of your skin? 

I have, and it doesn’t feel great. Especially when I stop being followed as soon as my white family comes to stand next to me. 

Imagine all of your worst moments of embarrassment and fear bundled up into one ball, and multiply that five times over, and you won’t come close to the feeling I had standing in that Best Buy phone case aisle.

Now, I didn’t talk to the employee afterward, but I can only assume, based on experience and other similar stories shared, that I was followed due to the rampant stereotypes that Black people are thieves and the fact that I myself am Black. 

This is just one of the many harmful stereotypes circulated about Black people, which perpetuate the distrust and mistreatment of Black people every day. 

Historical stereotypes and their modern implications

Harmful stereotypes against Black people have been maintained since the era of slavery, starting with the rising prevalence of minstrel shows, which popularized common ideas that Black people are lazy, ignorant, musical and buffoonish. Actors who performed in blackface portrayed Black people as lazy thieves with high sex drives. 

Another historical stereotype is the “Mandingo,” which was created to perpetuate the idea that Black people are animalistic. The “Mandingo” is a sexually insatiable Black man who has uncontrollable lust for a white woman; he is also often depicted as incredibly large and stronger than average. It has often been conflated with the “black buck” or “black brute” ideologies, which work to paint a picture of an untamable Black man who has a large penis. 

Though this isn’t something that has affected me since I’m not a Black man, I have heard several jokes about my mom, who is white, being a snow bunny and people asking me or her if she’s gone back (a play on the “once you go Black, you never go back” saying).

The modern depiction of this can be found in the claims that Black people are athletically superior to other races and are often viewed as getting into college based on their athletic ability rather than their intelligence. 

I did grow up playing sports, primarily basketball, and I really enjoyed playing it. It was a fun sport that I felt I could get incredibly good at, but that joy was sucked out when I got older, and people started to ask me if basketball was in my blood. 

No YMCA attendee and teammates, basketball is not in my blood, but thanks for ruining an activity for me. 

For Black women, they were historically presented as either the Sapphire or Jezebel caricatures, which portray Black women as angry, argumentative, emasculating and hypersexualized. These two caricatures are still seen in modern media to this day, with the tropes of the “loud Black best friend” or “angry Black woman” and how sexualized Black women are, especially in the music industry, from songs to music videos. 

There are many times in which I feel I can’t be as passionate or excited about something as I want to be in public for fear of being branded as just another loud Black woman. 

Due to these continuing portrayals of Black women, it has been found that Black women will seldom seek help for mental health issues and will see their ideas, values and emotions diminished after being seen as the angry Black woman one time. 

A more modern stereotype is that Black people are drug users or dealers, which was perpetuated by the War on Drugs in the late 1960s. 

When I was younger, I was talking to my white cousins about my parents, and they told me that my dad had been arrested. I remember the tone they used when they told me that; it gave a ‘holier-than-thou’ tone, like they were better than my dad and me, because, of course, the Black man had been arrested for drugs and violent crimes. 

So many of these stereotypes are still found in society today, and so many have evolved from the Jim Crow era under new names and ideas. It is so hard to be Black and wonder and second-guess every interaction I have with people. 

I find myself questioning if all they see when they look at me is the stereotypes that have haunted my people for generations, making it hard to find trust in others. Due to these stereotypes, I feel like I have to work twice as hard to get just as far as my white companions. 

So if the next time you see me in the store, your first thought is that I may steal something, check your bias.