Explore Stereotypes and Counter-stories

American culture is full of harmful racial stereotypes that reduce people to simplified images and ideas. These resources explore and contextualize historical stereotypes and provide counter-stories that resist and imagine more complex narratives.

Listen:

• • Ted Talk: Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche- The Danger of A Single Story

    • Adiche elaborates on the harm caused by stereotypes or "single stories" and urges us to push for more complexity.

  • Still Processing: We Discuss who owns stories about blackness

    • Wortham and Morris discuss how the meaning of stories change depending on the identity of the storyteller. They explore this concept through American films, music, and artwork.

Read:

• The Miseducation of the Negro: Carter G. Woodson

  • Carter G. Woodson explains how these ideas are embedded in U.S. schooling in order to sustain racial hierarchies.

Look:

• Kehinde Wiley

  • Wiley appropriated Western historical icons from the canon of art history.

• Fred Wilson

  • Wilson remixes and re-contextualizes art objects to reveal new meanings.

• Michael Ray Charles

  • Charles uses racist objects from America's past to tell new narratives of resistance and humor.

• Kara Walker

  • Walker's life-size silhouettes force American audiences to grapple with the violence of slavery in our not so distant past.