Stereotypes of

white people White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

are generalizations about the character, behavior, or appearance of

white Americans White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...

by other

Americans Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many dual citizens, expatriates, and permanent residents could also legally claim Ame ...

in the United States. For stereotypes about Americans by people of other nationalities, see

Stereotypes of Americans Stereotypes of American people (here meaning citizens of the United States) can today be found in virtually all cultures. They are often manifest in America's own television and in the media's portrayal of the United States as seen in other coun ...

Stereotype

Social stereotypes

In general, stereotypes of white people portray upper class white Americans as

WASPs A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. T ...

and they portray lower class white Americans as "backward", "barely-educated"

redneck ''Redneck'' is a derogatory term chiefly, but not exclusively, applied to white Americans perceived to be crass and unsophisticated, closely associated with rural whites of the Southern United States.Harold Wentworth, and Stuart Berg Flexner, ' ...

Academic studies

An early study of stereotypes of white people found in works of fiction which were written by African-American authors was conducted by African-American sociologist Tilman C. Cothran in 1950. The top five stereotypical qualities of whites that Cothran noted in his research were: Other stereotypical qualities he listed were "think they know the Negro," "unfair deceitful, tricky," "think it's a white man's world" and "cowardly." In another study on stereotypes in 1951, Tilman observed that the black lower and upper classes at that time had the least favorable stereotypes about white people, and the black middle class the most favorable. In a 1972 study, American whites were stereotyped as "materialistic and pleasure loving" when compared with Asian and African Americans. In a study among college students of different races in 1982, White Americans were described as materialistic, ambitious, intelligent, conventional, industrious, and conservative. The study's author noted that the white stereotype had decreased in favorability over the years while the black stereotype had increased. White women were described as attractive, blonde, ditsy, shallow, privileged, sexually available, and appearance-focused by non-white participants in a 2013 study. The author of the paper also found that the stereotypes were consistent with media images of white women and noted the relative scarcity of research on white American stereotypes compared to research on other racial stereotypes. In a 2018 study of children of different races, six year olds chose photos of white men as being "really smart" over photos of white women or black and brown people.

Popular culture

Becky and

Karen Karen may refer to: * Karen (name), a given name and surname * Karen (slang), a term and meme for a demanding woman displaying certain behaviors People * Karen people, an ethnic group in Myanmar and Thailand ** Karen languages or Karenic la ...

have been used as terms to refer to white women who act in a clueless, condescending or entitled way. Kyle refers to a stereotype of an angry white teenage boy who consumes energy drinks, punches holes into drywall, and plays video games. The

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...

Stuff White People Like, written by a white man and an Asian man, addressed early 21st century stereotypes of white hipster bohemians in a humorous way. Comedian

Dave Chappelle David Khari Webber Chappelle ( ; born August 24, 1973) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known for his satirical comedy sketch series ''Chappelle's Show'' (2003–2006), which he starred in until quitting in the middle of p ...

also used humor to address the stereotype that white Americans cannot dance in a sketch in which groups of whites erupt into frenzied dancing every time they hear an electric guitar.

Negative portrayals of specific groups of white people

As the social definition of "white people" has changed over the years, studies have shown that members of different races, ethnicities, and

nationalities Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...

have different stereotypes of white people. Before the 1980s,

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

s such as the

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...

Armenians Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...

, and

Polish people Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Cen ...

were portrayed in popular media and culture in a negative fashion. Stereotypes of

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

ns and Alabamians include

incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity ( marriage or stepfamily), ado ...

and

inbreeding Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely related genetically. By analogy, the term is used in human reproduction, but more commonly refers to the genetic disorders a ...

. Poor whites in the

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, C ...

n region have often been stereotyped as

hillbillies Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks. The term was later used to refer to people from other rural and mountainous areas west ...

White Hispanic and Latino Americans In the United States, a white Hispanic or Latino is an individual who is of full or partial Hispanic or Latino descent, the largest group being white Mexican Americans. Although not differentiated in the U.S. Census definition, White Latino Am ...

are often overlooked by the U.S.

mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit informati ...

and frequently, American social perceptions incorrectly give the terms "Hispanic or Latino" a racial value, usually mixed-race, such as

Mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though thei ...

, while they, in turn, are overrepresented in the U.S. Hispanic mass media, are admired by it, and shape social perceptions of Hispanic and Latino Americans.

References