Stigmatized!!!

   There have been many instances in my life in which I have locked my car doors, held my purse a little tighter, or crossed the street because a person I thought was a threat was close by. In his essay entitled "Black Men and Public Space," Brent Staples talks about how he was sometimes the cause of such reactions. He tells about how his stature, the color of his skin, his beard, and state of dress make him come off as threatening. For many black men, this is a common occurrence. They are subject to many instances of racial profiling, but why is this so? Why are black men synonymous with so many bad things? This is because they have been stigmatized. 

    In his book, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, sociologist Erving Goffman wrote that to Greeks "the term stigma... refer[s] to bodily signs designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of the signifier." For black men, this is invariably their skin color and sex. Because they are black males, they have been stigmatized to be aggressive, rough, thuggish, ect. It doesn't take a genius to realize that such assumptions are not true for everyone, but that doesn't stop people from reacting in certain ways when they see certain types of people. Truth is, we are all subject to certain stigmas and labels. Every person of every race has the ability to alter public space his or her own way.

    Placing stigmas on people is wrong in every case, but it is our job as people to break them. Not everyone is the same and we should not be treated as such!