While at Work, a Surprise

So a couple days ago, a couple of my coworkers and I were chatting, and one of them brought up an interesting book she'd started reading. She began describing it, say how there was an ex-football player inmate who'd recently finished his time and just got out. She explained that there was this rich paraplegic man who saw him in a bar or somewhere and approached him, asking him to sleep with his wife so they could have he and his wife might have kids. He said he wanted him since he didn't want any suspicion by anyone outside thinking it was anyone other than his own kid--that is, he wanted a blond haired, blue eyed kid. Now after my coworker said that, my other coworker suddenly said, "oh, this whole time I thought he was black." My other coworker laughed and said "yeah I guess since I didn't say you would assume that, since he was a football player and in prison."

That was so revealing to me, because I'm not going to evade the point--I, too, thought he was black the whole time and had a moment of confusion when she said a blue eyed blond baby would be born. Obviously what we've been discussing is not only prevalent, but these stereotypes are completely lodged in people's heads, so much so that they don't even really realize it.

After reading Jessica's latest post, I also agree that a lot of people see female athletes as lesbians actually, at least in basketball. I took a class by Victor Villanueva where we had to read a fiction book about a black lesbian and an Asian lesbian, both basketball players. It talked about how a bunch of the girls are lesbians actually and also it seemed like most of the players were of color. I wonder if this book is really based on truth, and if not is it too perpetuating stereotypes? Because I had no previous judgements about athletes being lesbians, until this book and Dr. Villanueva talked about it. I do feel that people think athletes are very masculine--sports clothes can look really look masculine, and the sports themselves are from sports men played. This reminds me of another point brought up earlier, I think by Jessica, about other sports and whether these stereotypes are just about certain sports. I really think it is, because swimmers are not really seen as masculine or lesbian, because it's an individual sport that is still very much geared toward both sexes. Horseback sports are also equal in judgement for the same reasons, and other sports as well: tennis, volleyball (where I know of a few instances where my guy friends only watched it because of their outfits and the way it made their behinds look), track, etc...

Anyways, I do not think people assume that every black person is an athlete, but I do think that people assume that many athletes are black/of color. And I see it in sports. Are stereotypes there because the reality caused them to form, or is reality there because people stereotyped athletes? And another question I hesitated to bring up... are stereotypes stereotypes if they are reflected in reality? I have class in a few minutes, but I am going to investigate the manner and pull out some statistics on this matter.