Whenever someone says African American, the first thing that comes to people’s mind is slavery, crime, and incarceration. But, when someone says Asian Americans, different things come to people’s mind like hard working, studious, good at math. So, why do these different stereotypes come to people’s mind when talking about two completely different ethnic groups. “In the United States, 39 percent of African-American children and adolescents are living in poverty, which is more than double the 14 percent poverty rate for Asian children and adolescents.
” This is important because since there are many African Americans in the US and it may affect the economy if not many people are working in the economy. Also, the two groups, African American and Asian Americans are being compared because the past years, the poverty rate for Asian Americans and African Americans have a very relative difference.
These differences make the point that the anxiety of common prosperity among Asian-Americans is being used to devalue racism’s part in the insistent struggles of other minority groups, especially black Americans.
The poverty rates among African Americans are greater than Asian Americans because of the incarceration, jobs, and historical impressions. African Americans are given less opportunities for jobs than Asian Americans due to the conventional image of African Americans that everyone has had. “Among African-Americans the unemployment rate fell to 6.6 percent, but in the same month, the unemployment rate was 2.7 percent for Asian-Americans.” (Ell, 2018) This quote already emphasizes the fact that the unemployment rate for African Americans is higher than Asian Americans.
It also emphasizes that no matter what time of the year, the unemployment rate of African Americans is always greater than Asian Americans. Usually, African Americans are given less job opportunities than Asian Americans due to the perspectives of both groups.
One such perspective of African Americans is that they can’t read or write as well as other people because they were not allowed to since they were enslaved by white people. This perspective has been going on for many years and still continues today. High unemployment for African Americans designates that there is racism tied to it. Job interviewers get racist because they don’t want to hire african american people due to the stereotypes they have. The Asian American unemployment rate is also one of the lowest out of all ethnicities. This unemployment is the lowest overall because Asian Americans have higher educational levels than African Americans. There are no such stereotypes about Asian Americans that has affected their unemployment rate. Overall, you can see that the black American unemployment rate is very high due to the stereotypes about African Americnas, but Asian Americans unemployment rate is very low due to their higher education levels.
The historical impression of African Americans has affected the lives of many African Americans in different ways such as the way the live or what they do , the type of job they have, and the way they view themselves, but in the world there are no historical impressions for Asian Americans that can affect their lives drastically. Stereotypes about African Americans have been going on in African American society since after slavery became a racial institution. One way historical impressions have affected the lives of African Americans is by they way they are living or what they are doing. ‘Black students experience more suspensions, expulsions, and disciplinary actions than white students, even for exactly the same behavior.” This quotes mean that even though the black students do the same behavior as the white students, the black students still get more consequences (punishments) than the white students and this only happens due to the race difference. Historical impressions has also affected the way African Americans view themselves. African Americans have heard many sterrotypes about themselves like going to jail, slavery, not capapble of doing a job.
These kinds of stereotypes affect they way they view themselves because these stereotypes might discourage the African Americans from pursuing the dreams of becoming a doctor, engineer, etc. These sterotypes might also lead to suicide attempts becasue they might think that they are not wanted in this world anymore. Data has shown that the uicide rates for African Americans is twice as higher than Asian Americans. This directly correlates to the fact about the way African Americans view themselves. Historical impressions has also affected the type of job African Ameicans have. It has already been proven that African Americans have a higher unemployment rate than Asian Americans. But, they also differ in they type of job they get. For example, due to the historical impression of not being that smart, African Americans are more likely to get jobs like cleaning the floor, being a waitress, instead of working at a big company. The recurring cycle of incarceration has increased the poverty rates of African Americans and not affected Asian Americans at all due to the incarceration rates of Asian Americans being very low.
“The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that, in 2010, the incarceration rate for black men in all of the country’s jails and prisons was 4,347 people per 100,000.” Even though African Americans are overrepresented in the incarcerated population of the United States, the incarceration rates of Asian Americans are very low. The inmate rate of Asian Americans in 2018 is 1.5%, while the inmate rate of African Americans is 38.1%. This statistics show that the inmate rate of both ethnic groups is directly coorelated with the incarceration rate of both ethnic groups. After all this evidence and statements we can see that the poverty rate of african Americans is high due to the unemployment rate and their very bad historical impresion. The solutions to this are not many, but one solution is trying to give African Americans more jobs but not based on their historical impression of slavery. Also, giving African Americans more education can give them more opportunities to do jobs. For Asian Americans,
Causes of African American and Asian American Changing Poverty Rate . (2022, Feb 09). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/causes-of-african-american-and-asian-american-changing-poverty-rate/