Bettye Latimer lecture, "The Hidden Curriculum and Stereotyping," at the University of Iowa, February 21, 1976

Speaker 1: The following is a lecture recorded February 21st at the University of Iowa, as part of the 1975/76 Black Kaleidoscope Eight Series. Betty Latimer, a consultant with the Wisconsin Department of Education, is heard speaking on the Hidden Curriculum and Stereotyping. [Darwin Turner]: A former English teacher of Florida A&M University. For some years, she's been serving as a consultant to the Department of Education in Wisconsin. Presently, she is an Assistant to the Mayor in Madison. She has been studying images of children, images of various representatives of racial and ethnic minority groups in America. Particularly, she began this with an exploration of images of Black children. [Darwin Turner]: She has published a book called "Starting Out Right", and has copies of that available. A suggestion of an analysis of some of the images and the literature, and the rest of the program is Betty's. Betty Latimer: Thank you for waiting on me and hope you will bear with me. My voice is simply not a pretty voice. What I'd like to do is to explore with you today the nature of stereotypes and how they reflect themselves in everyday lives and experiences...I would like to push this table as much as possible. So, feel free to speak up. I'm going to be standing more near the Blackboard. [Darwin Turner]: Wherever you would like to stand [crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: I'd like for you to participate with me as much as possible. We only have an hour. So at some point I may be rushing, simply trying to condense things so you can get a full perspective, but I want your participation as much as possible. First thing I'd like to do is explore some stereotypes with you. Betty Latimer: Let's begin with Native Americans, for example. Does anything come to mind in terms of the stereotype that you might've heard about an Indian, that you might've heard your family say or children at school say? Or when you were growing up, what did people say about Indians? Audience Member: Savages. Betty Latimer: They're savage, okay. Audience Member: They had a proclivity for scalping. Betty Latimer: Okay. Betty Latimer: Massacre [crosstalk]. Audience Member: Alcoholism. Betty Latimer: Alcoholism? Betty Latimer: Anybody else? Audience Member: Painting faces. Audience Member: They would paint their faces, massacres. Feathers. Buy tomahawks. [crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: Paint their faces, feathers. Betty Latimer: They don't know how to fight cowboys. Betty Latimer: [crosstalk] cowboys, and therefore they were- Audience Member: Losers. Betty Latimer: Losers, okay. Anything else comes to mind at this point? Audience Member: Squaws. Women in a negative position. Betty Latimer: Okay. Audience Member: Dumb squaw. [crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: Okay. I'll just put in parentheses here, "Dumb Squaws". A Squaw is not a- Audience Member: Negative. Betty Latimer: Yeah. Audience Member: Necessarily the image is- Betty Latimer: Negative. Anything else that you might want to say? Okay, let's go on to the next group. Spanish people. Spanish speaking people. Maybe Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, or Cubans or something. Audience Member: They have machismo. Betty Latimer: Machismo? Audience Member: Yeah, and they still done it. Betty Latimer: M-A? Audience Member: C-H-I-S-M-O, which is exaggerated chauvinism. Betty Latimer: Okay. Exaggerated chauvinism. If they can be sent to [inaudible], but if some people have more chauvinism than others, then the Spanish do? Audience Member: Yeah, that's right. Betty Latimer: Anything else? Audience Member: [crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: Sombrero. Audience Member: Siesta. Betty Latimer: Siesta. On welfare. Audience Member: Welfare. Audience Member: Okay. [crosstalk]. Lots of children. The diet of tortillas and beans. Re-fried beans, and peppery enchiladas. Betty Latimer: And hot peppers, right? And hyper emotional? And what do you mean, hyper emotional? Audience Member: Like compared to normal, white Americans. [crosstalk] emotional. Betty Latimer: Hot blooded? Is that what you're talking about? Audience Member: That would take as a sexual thing too, I guess. Betty Latimer: And high strung, as opposed to hyper emotional, high strung. Audience Member: Here's the villain with the mustache. [crosstalk] Audience Member: Can't speak English. Betty Latimer: Okay. Can't speak English? Audience Member: No, Lucille Ball had to teach them how. Betty Latimer: What about Black people now? Audience Member: They're shiftless, dirty, lazy, ignorant. [crosstalk] Betty Latimer: I just opened up a Pandora's box. Ignorant. Yeah, sorry I didn't get all of them. I remember one about banjo. Audience Member: Banjo plucking. Audience Member: Musically, rhythmic. [crosstalk 00:00:08:01]. Audience Member: Watermelon stealing. Chicken chasing. They're not always fast enough to catch the chicken. Audience Member: Sexual... Super studs. So [inaudible]. Audience Member: So what were you saying that? Audience Member: No morals. Audience Member: Okay, no morals. Well, just in case, that means a little different outputs I'll put [inaudible]. Audience Member: Super studs and prostitutes. Audience Member: Hot mamas. Betty Latimer: And maybe up where 'super studs' put a slash and put hot mamas, because all hot mamas didn't even have to be prostitutes. A lot of them didn't get paid because they liked being hot. Betty Latimer: Anything else maybe? Audience Member: Dumb. [crosstalk] We can't talk. Can't talk, can sing, but can't talk. Sing and dance. Tap, preferably. [crosstalk]. Audience Member: Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemima. Betty Latimer: Always taking care of other people's children [crosstalk] but not taking care of their own. Audience Member: Pancakes, too. Betty Latimer: That's what we mean by [crosstalk] nursing, taking care of other people's children, but not taking care of their own. Okay. Voice is going to sound horrible to this microphone, but you can tell them that I looked at worst. Good. It's not a movie. Anything else you want to? Okay. Let's let's do it. Betty Latimer: Let's see if we can shift any one of these. Can we transfer any one of these, for example, shift this. Would that apply happened the Spanish and the native American? Audience Member: Yeah. Betty Latimer: Athletic? Audience Member: Not sure. Betty Latimer: Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemima? Audience Member: Not so much. Betty Latimer: Okay. Lazy? Native Americans and Spanish? Dirty? Even dumb? Audience Member: Universals. Betty Latimer: Banjo plucking? Audience Member: No they didn't know most guitar [crosstalk] no, not so much. Audience Member: Relative things of Spanish, but not so much of the Native American. Betty Latimer: What about just in general? The musical, [foreign language]. Chicken chasers. Audience Member: No. Black folk love chicken [inaudible]. Betty Latimer: Rhythmic? Audience Member: Everybody, all of us. Betty Latimer: Morals? Audience Member: Maybe all of them. Betty Latimer: Super studs and hot mamas? Audience Member: Spanish and Black, maybe not so much Native Americans. Betty Latimer: Prostitutes? Audience Member: Yeah, sort of. Spanish and Black. Betty Latimer: Can't talk? Audience Member: Can't talk English, can't talk normal. Audience Member: But can sing and dance all of them. Betty Latimer: Shuffling along. Audience Member: That's mostly the Black. Betty Latimer: Can I see here? Okay. It's interesting how we can take most of those from this category and put here, or vice versa. Like on welfare would go over there. A lot of children go to all three, right? Audience Member: Even the sombrero, you could get a certain style of suit and exaggerated hat. Betty Latimer: So fancy clothing, not knowing how to dress in the normal mainstream of things. A diet of tortillas and beans and hot peppers. Well, a diet of- Indians have their own foods and Blacks have their own foods, which are depreciated in the sense. Okay, hot blooded. That's where you can come in with the hot mamas and the super studs. Okay, high strung. Are Blacks supposed to be very emotional. Audience Member: Oh yeah, yeah. Betty Latimer: Native Americans? Audience Member: Yeah. Audience Member: Well, it's like the Native American cold blooded rather than hot blooded. It's like, we'll scalp you in a minute, [crosstalk] but actually Native Americans are hot-blooded-cold-blooded bloody [inaudible], according to AC/DC. Audience Member: Not high strung in the sense in which it might get applied to the Spanish. I'm not sure it's even applied to Chicano because that becomes the characteristic of the sophisticated civilized white person, the high strung, as opposed to the lazy Black or the stoic Native American. Audience Member: I think maybe high strong might be the wrong category that was meant. It was like highly emotional, easily inflamed kind of thing. Betty Latimer: Easily pushed to anger or to other kinds of sensuous feelings. Betty Latimer: Thank you. what we're trying to show though, here is that a number of the stereotypes that are applied to one group, under which one group suffers, the other group also centers. It's almost like they're interchangeable, except for a couple of them that belong to the culture and the environment are- Audience Member: It takes up the knife play with different scalp and I could see that, like on one you'd have the scalpel, the Tomahawk, the Spanish, you'd have the machete, and the Black you'd have the razor, or the knife. Betty Latimer: Yes, that's right. I think that's a very good point that there is some transference of these stereotypes from one group to another. Just quickly go down another group here. Women. What are some stereotypes that belong to women? Audience Member: Housekeepers and homemakers. Audience Member: Deceitful. Downfall a man. Audience Member: Emotional. [crosstalk]. Audience Member: Lazy elbows because they don't like full time employment or full wages. Betty Latimer: They don't like work- Audience Member: But they do a lot of work. Betty Latimer: They like a lot of work. Audience Member: Just charity, for free, volunteer work. Audience Member: Slave work, prefer slave labor to wages. Betty Latimer: Volunteer, slaves. [crosstalk] Audience Member: Sensual, seductress. Audience Member: Gossip, talk too much. Audience Member: Pink frills, big boobs, bosoms. Audience Member: Big boobs and bold butts might go together. Audience Member: Superficial, non-intellectual. Audience Member: Beauty. Betty Latimer: Are you trying to say interested in being beautiful only? I heard somebody said beauty and I wasn't quite sure. Audience Member: Vain [crosstalk]. Audience Member: Mothers. Audience Member: Nag. Audience Member: Let's see now. How many of these now these stereotypes about women can we transfer to the minorities? Housekeepers homemakers? No? Okay. In preference to wanting to work, they prefer to stay in the home. Deceitful? Either for for Spanish or Native Americans? Audience Member: Yeah, I would say so. Betty Latimer: Downfall of man? Audience Member: Yeah, all of those, downfall of white man. Audience Member: The burdens. Betty Latimer: The burden of the white man or the downfall of man. Okay, emotional, lazy? They don't like to work full time. Audience Member: They have to be supported by white males or welfare pf the government. Betty Latimer: Okay. Seductive? Well, they have some kind of over-sensual approach. Gossipy, dumb, [inaudible] rather than things of substance, Black people like the Cadillacs and fancy jewelry. Big bosoms and bold butts. Audience Member: All of them, even the man. Betty Latimer: Intellectual. Vain. Audience Member: Not necessarily. Betty Latimer: Okay, what about mothers? In the sense of- Audience Member: Uncle Tom is a mother. Betty Latimer: What do you think of children? A lot of children? Okay, their role in life is to have a lot of children. And we just accept that as a given fact. Audience Member: You must have children to be a woman. Audience Member: But again, here's the point at which there's a contrast between the white group and the minority groups that the minority groups are capable of bearing children, but theoretically can't care for them well, and instead the children of the whites. Betty Latimer: Well, there's some kind of stereotype about children and caring for them. Nagging? Audience Member: That goes over all of those. I think that mothering thing, a role confusion as to what is the role of adults and children. And as I said, I think Uncle Tom is a mother. Betty Latimer: In a sense that he cared for whites. Audience Member: And then he has to have children gathered around. There's something not so manlike about what Uncle Tom does to the children. He would just send them out to babysit. Betty Latimer: Bitchy? Nitpicky? Rather than concerned with important things. Audience Member: Yeah. Betty Latimer: Okay. Well, not all of these will fit, not all the stereotypes will be transferred. Again, we just merely want to show that a number of them can be transferred between minorities, and women, and vice versa. And let me think, I think that's very interesting about the stereotypes. Now, they're probably a hundred more stereotypes that we could list. We haven't gotten all of them, but there are opposites to these stereotypes. There's always an opposite quality and these stereotypes are imposed, by the opposite people. Betty Latimer: For the women, it would be men, for the Blacks and minorities, it would be whites. And it is the opposite group who is supposed to have the opposite trait. Men are not supposed to house keep because that's a work that's too lowly for them. It doesn't match their talent. Betty Latimer: Men are not deceitful. They're honest. Men are not emotional, they're rational. Men want to work, they're not lazy, they're ambitious. Black people don't want to work. They're lazy. They aren't ambitious, same thing in Spanish, and native Americans. Men don't really have an interest in sex, they're not seductive. They're not very aggressive about being sexy, about their need for sexual fulfillment. Betty Latimer: Men don't gossip. You see only women do. My feeling is that gossip for men has become institutionalized through bars and poker clubs and the Elks club. They have an institutionalized way of gossiping because I don't think that very many intellectual discussion go on in the village bar, but there are plenty of them, you see. Men are not dumb. They're smart. They are the architects of the world. And the same thing here, white people have morals, Black people, this is genetic, they were born with rhythm; they don't have to develop it, automatically they can dance. Betty Latimer: White people know how to control their sexual needs. Over here with alcoholism, we suppose that they can't handle liquor, but white people can handle liquor. Again, we have the Playboy clubs and other kinds of things in which. Audience Member: Which is also a kind of seduction too, gratifying sexual needs. It seems to be accepted. Betty Latimer: Right. It's in an institutionalized form. So I think those are some interesting things to bring that to you. You have any comments on things? Okay. Audience Member: Of course. You know, and one of the major things is the violence of the savage and massacre, and the opposite, where other people are peace, loving but there's some violence in all of those folk. Betty Latimer: These people are violent. These people are violent. These people are violent. As a matter of fact, let me ask you this. When a woman does not play these roles that have been set for her, what is she called? Audience Member: Man-ish among other things. Betty Latimer: Man-ish. Acts like a man, wants to be a man. Anything else? Audience Member: Rebel. Betty Latimer: A rebel. An aggressive, broad. Pushy, she's very pushy. It's all right for a man to be aggressive and ambitious. We expect that. But once a woman is somehow we depreciate that. Audience Member: The whole question of feminism. Like if you take being a woman beyond what people set in the road, then you are over feminine. Betty Latimer: Right. Audience Member: You are like, and which is ... Betty Latimer: Or anti-feminine. Audience Member: A 360 degree circle, in that they also said that you're homosexual. Betty Latimer: Right. Audience Member: Because you're feminine. Betty Latimer: Right, that's right, you're lesbian. Right. That's right. Okay. The same thing happens with these people. Once Blacks step out of this role, they're uppity, they're militant, devout. Same thing with Indians. Audience Member: Or they're passing for white. Betty Latimer: Or they want to act like whites. Yes. So, there are a number of dynamics that come off of these stereotypes. This is an interesting thing about stereotypes is that they do not exist in the abstract. They are very viable. And we live with them every day. We see them every day. We experience them every day, and most of our institutions are so geared, that they reinforce these stereotypes over, and over, and over again but in very subtle ways. We can put those on the boards, but on the board, they look like abstractions. They really are. You and I are victims of these stereotypes to a lesser or greater degree every day. And this is what we're going to talk about on the slides is how these stereotypes come across in everyday experiences. Betty Latimer: We purposely have a gun with children, with the kinds of experiences that we give to children to show we start stereotyping people at a very, early age, and we go on to that, so by the time we're 20, 30, and 40, like the rest of us here, we all have come to live and accept these stereotypes. The other interesting thing about stereotypes is that the victim begins to act as if the stereotype were true. Audience Member: Self-fulfilling stereotypes. Audience Member: And internalization which is worse; the internalization of them. [crosstalk] Betty Latimer: Would you turn the light back on just one minute please? Audience Member: You can ask them to keep the one on in the back- Betty Latimer: Yeah, she can. Uh-huh (affirmative). Betty Latimer: I had a script. I think this is it. Now, I don't know whether I can live with that light over there, I think it's controlled by the right and left side of the room? Audience Member: This one I can get off and I can switch off the other one, if you want? Betty Latimer: Now, that's fine. I think he can... Yeah... These are the next slide shows a series of toys that children are exposed to at a very early age, they cost 39 cents, 49 cents, hardly any of them cost $2 or more. Most children who are four, five and six years old have been exposed to these toys. They are given to them as gifts and so forth. Now let's take a child who was five or six, just about ready to enter school. Betty Latimer: He or she has never seen an Indian, but they have an image of what these people are like. They can tell you [inaudible], they were feathers. They don't equate Indians with being people, and certainly with being people who they want to be. And many of the stereotypes that we have missed if they're on the board come through very clearly on these toys that we begin to give kids as soon as they get out of the crib. So, this is one of the ways in which the stereotypes are reinforced. You see the Indian here in connection with the cowboy. So the Indian really doesn't have a culture of his own when we present it, they always are dependent upon the cowboy. Of course, you know, the Indian's always lost, as we said, somebody said they were the losers. They were always engaged in the fight, but they always lost. Betty Latimer: This is particularly interesting because you see a blue-eyed, blonde kid shooting down a helpless India, whose being guarded by some soldiers and you're looking the other way now. Target gun set, whether or not you're a pacifist or anti-war you know, I'm from my country. The point here is that there could have been another motif put on this box to sell this. So the question is, why did we choose to the Indian to do this? Betty Latimer: Halloween Mask. Anybody ever seen children dressed up as Indians on Halloween? Common thing, very well accepted here. Here it is a makeup kit. Indian is put in the same position as the clown, the tram, the bed, and the devil and so forth. What does that say? What kind of messages being delivered here? Audience Member: They are undesirable people. Betty Latimer: They are undesirable people. Audience Member: They are slightly off color and you know, [crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: The Indians are people who could be ridiculed and Indians are not real. You know, you can put on an Indian mask, and take it off. You can put on a cloud mask and you can take it off. There's not really a genuine appreciation for Indian as a person. Audience Member: Could I add something I didn't notice before, that they've even thrown in the Black suddenly with do your thing. Betty Latimer: Yes. Right, right, with the hippie there. These are people who all... we play with these. These are entertainment for us. We don't have any appreciation. To me, this is the epitome of dehumanization. Audience Member: You know, someone must've thought though, when I get a good sound boat on, and for some reason they decided not to do the sound boat, the Black face... And one of the things is... They've been afraid that they would be so attractive, that whole neighborhood would have gone Black. That they would have a problem. Betty Latimer: When I was talking to my children, I told them about this and I said, a lot of the rest of us, we live in a white neighbor, I always say the school should give you a gold medal for integrating the school every year. I keep sending another Latimer in. And you know that I wouldn't want a child dressed up as a nigger to come to my door on Halloween. Betty Latimer: It does not really make any difference how the image appears on clothing. I saw the boy yesterday with a jacket on and had a risk and a symbol right here. Many football and basketball teams are named after so called Indian tribes and then they have mascots that are really depreciating. And some of the Indian people have spoken out against those. And it was very difficult to show white folks why... Difficult time showing white folks why this was depreciating. Maybe children have Indian and cowboy Indian birthday parties. We take it as a given. This is a good thing. Innocently, we're feeding racism to our children. "Oh, they're just four and five. They don't have those. They don't have any feelings. All people are the same to them." These are some of the answers you might here. Audience Member: I heard a child say to this woman, who had taken her kids to [inaudible] to try and get some [inaudible], he said I don't like Indians. She said you don't Indians. He said they're [inaudible] and he was [inaudible] to the point that he could verbalize it. And his mother just... Betty Latimer: This is it. This is where it comes. Outside of TV and the preschools storybooks and the first-grade story books, they had a very definite blood negative idea of Indians. I will put my life on the line to say they are not 10 books and anybody's, in any school library in this country that are appreciative of the Indian culture. Most, all of the early childhood books on Indians are very negative. Let's find out about our Indians. The whole paternalistic, patronizing thing comes through. Betty Latimer: I thought we were going, going this afternoon and I've brought some books to demonstrate this. Betty Latimer: Adults have a way of treating the Indian image too, a lot of it comes through on greeting cards. I'm hearing Wisconsin being kind to our feathered friends. I've got a date with an Indian. Aside from the message it is intended to give other kinds of messages on here. Audience Member: This, chicken, the animal... Audience Member: Equating Indians with animals. Betty Latimer: Equating Indians with animals. Again, it's the dehumanization syndrome that runs right through our treatment of Indians. There's a dehumanization syndrome. There's a syndrome of Indian that all live in the past. There's a syndrome of violence. Whatever the occasion, there is a greeting card that we can buy. Now, these cards believe me, they're part of big business and they would not sell unless this people bought them. What's a slur on the English language? What you call a broken English? Again, it goes back to the stereotype, that those people can talk English. Betty Latimer: No self-respecting white middle class American would say [inaudible]. Audience Member: And that also makes you really not have appreciation for languages. Period. When you think that all languages have to have a central verb that doesn't necessarily have to be there. Betty Latimer: Our children can never really appreciate Indian language and the beauty of the sounds that come from them because we give them this kind of... reading storybooks will begin "once many moons ago," instead of "once upon a time." Many moons ago, that's not how the Indians ever spoke. There's no such thing as a papoose or a squaw in any tribal language. It's our prostitution of the Indian language or languages because there are many. I consider this again the epitome classic case of dehumanization in that all Indians do wear feathers for some occasions, it's part of their ceremonial dress and those ceremonies are very important to them. Just as Easter and Christmas and 4th of July are important celebration occasions for us. Betty Latimer: And yet we don't understand enough about the ceremonies and Indian costumes that we know to do anything except to appreciate them. For me, this is comparable to putting the Pope's costume on a dog. Because an Indian head dress is a very sacred thing. Audience Member: You'd have the mafia on if you put the pope... Betty Latimer: And we wonder why Indians are violent and dissatisfied and don't really like us. Salt and pepper shakers, all kinds of tokens in many ways, mostly the entertainment ways, that's the way we get [inaudible]. Can I point out would another title have served the purpose it ought to give to describe the recipe. Speaker 16: Yield 16 Indians. Betty Latimer: Come on, children. Here's some Indians. Mother wants to serve you a little Indian. Well like 16 pink swedes or 16 niggers, it's the same. Audience Member: Color marriage. Betty Latimer: Advertisements take advantage of so-called antique motifs. Very few Indian people who could really get educational loans send their children to college. Betty Latimer: I'm going to skip over that one, because [inaudible]. Betty Latimer: Okay. Now in the middle years of schooling, the child is exposed to something like this. This is the wrap up of a bulletin board as the period in a fifth grade language arts classroom. Vocabulary building and there're several words on the left hand side and the captions say, have you attacked any new words this week? The teacher did this very subconsciously or unconsciously, unintentionally. When I pointed it out to him, he began to give me a chronology of how you've been involved in Selma and some the other civil rights demonstrations. They did really wasn't prejudice in any way. And he really didn't see where that was harmful. There's a definite sociological message there, delivered along with everything else. And that sociological message fits those stereotypes, Savage, violence, so forth. Betty Latimer: Until we reach a certain consciousness. We will continue to do this kind of thing. These are little tokens, you can see that cost 36 cents at Kresge's or Kmart. On the back of the carrot, they have a little biography, 50 or 60 words. Jesse James: Jesse Woodson James 1847 to 1862 and American outlaw born in West, Missouri on September 5th, 1847, son of a Baptist minister. He lived a life beyond the law that is almost inseparable from legend with his brother, Frank. With his clear blue eyes and small white hands, Jesse impressed people as a kindly person until he shot. 1866-1881 [crosstalk] specialized in bank and train robbing. [icrosstalk] In 1862-82, Jesse, living under the name of Thomas Howard in St. Joseph, Missouri, was killed by Bob Board, a member of his band. He was shot in the back of his head. Betty Latimer: Little Crow, die-cast figure: Born about 1803 near St. Palmas. So, his Indian name was Taoyateduta. Little Crow gave the signal for the greatest surprise attack, and perpetuated the bloodiest massacre in the history of a long and bloody contest between the red men and white. He was famous among the suit for his drinking and chasing women. Little Crow was shot in 1863 while picking berries with one of his sons. A settler by the name of Lamson, who killed Little Crow, did not even know at the time that he had shot the famous chief of the Sioux tribe. You have any brief comments? Audience Member: So what else is new? Betty Latimer: Now this happens to be on a 36 cent Kresge package, but it's very similar to what [inaudible] did in [Texas]. Audience Member: Well, I think that chasing women had him drinking. Betty Latimer: Well, of course it fits right in with the stereotypes. Audience Member: I mean, well that they just boldly. Just let me be sure if you have missed that [crosstalk] , there you are. Audience Member: I am in interest such with such a common people and child. You know [inaudible] Betty Latimer: Well it has a relevant, the interest, goes hand in hand with Jesse James, that you see Little Crow was Indian and he [crosstalk] Audience Member: His morals, he has no morals. Betty Latimer: Yeah, no morals, and he is Jesse James an outlaw, but he's not an outlaw, he lived outside of the law. Audience Member: That's right. Betty Latimer: And, he is, his father was a creature and his looked white hands really treated him well as he shot you in the back. Audience Member: I said classic example of the way that it's possible for society to take the white, who has been at the bottom and to glamorize the white and in contrast to take the far more heroic non-white and to make that individual into this healthier. But it's so calmly done. Betty Latimer: The mist making apparatus at work, even at the 39 cents level. Here's why I maintain those stereotypes are not without vehicles to perpetuate them. Audience Member: Can I put out something minor? Also, notice the eyes are clear blue, Jesse didn't drink. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been so clear blue. Betty Latimer: They would have been bloodshot. He specialized in trading and bank robberies. Audience Member: His father was a Baptist minister, which meant he came of good religious American stock. Betty Latimer: Yeah, he was ethical when he was born. Audience Member: And he was Robin hood. You know, the implication is that even though he specialized in banking, you know, you can be sure that he probably did something good with that specialization. Audience Member: Everybody has to have a fetal specialization. [crosstalk] Betty Latimer: Little old boy riding over here, man, on the radio. That's what he was doing. And the man on radio, I asked the little boy, do you know who Jesse James? I didn't get all of it, but he said, yeah I know him, he can shoot well. But he shot people. Those were his words and that was the end of it. But, he's glorified and glamorized here. Little Crow massacre, bloody contest. We don't know much about the roots of Little Crow. We know quite a bit about the roots of Jesse James. We know his full name. We know where he was born. We know some of his family heritage. Audience Member: Even in the first line there, Little Crow is the die cast figure, Where as Jesse James [crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: But, these are college graduates of course who are writing this and selecting the material. I wish I had it, but I don't. You know, there are a lot there. The minority ethnic calendars that you see nowadays, one of them has a small biography of Little Crow on them. I don't know which year, but I do remember seeing it. And it's quite the opposite of this. Cause it was written from the perspective of the Indian people. There's no ways you wouldn't even think they're talking about the same person. So, we began presenting these images early as in this preschool dictionary. And then by the time they get to the fifth grade, we give them a definition of Indian in a dictionary called Word Wonder Dictionary, where we walk to school each day, Indian children used to play all about our natives land, where the shops and houses stand and the trees were very tall and there were no students at all, not a church and not a steeple. Only woods and Indian people. This is the definition of an Indian. Betty Latimer: There's a syndrome of Indian being uncivilized syndrome of the Indian existing in the past. The whole page, syndrome comes out here where we walk to school each day, all about our league of life to get to sidetrack a little bit, I'm very suspicious of any textbook we used to do in depth analysis. And I'm very suspicious of textbook that has proposed as a proud pronouns, Our Democracy, Our World, The Land of Our, This Land of Ours. Invariably, I found that the title was almost a give away to the depth of racism in that textbook. I'm talking about social studies. By very famous author, one of the best selling books still. Audience Member: I wonder what he meant by phone, I mean he said ocean, but not really because [inaudible]. Betty Latimer: I had to skip over all of this, but the rest of these slides do show how the Indian image is used in a negative way in the past. You probably have many examples of those in your own experiences. And I guess what I'm saying is that it's up to the school of education in our universities and colleges to begin to raise the consciousness of those they're educating so these kinds of images don't come out in the classroom and we aren't continually reinforcing them. For Spanish speaking images, the greeting character used again. Are you getting itchy? Are you getting itchy because of the time? Oh, salt and pepper? The salt and pepper shakers you remember the Indian salt and pepper shakers? They're just the stereotype version. I've been wanting to make a slide of bookings with the sleeping Mexican, but they cost too much. Betty Latimer: You know, I want to mention you have people who are not white. The villain with the mustache, the siesta, the sleeping Mexican, I don't know how they ever sleep on those cactus except their strong backs. The wetback, a whole way of legitimizing the fact that Mexicans come into the country illegally. It's also sexism that is the passionate virgin drink. Advertisements, almost the same mechanisms are used so far as I can determine to perpetuate these stereotypes here. Advertisements greeting cards, tokens. This is the statue there of the Indian of the Mexican, you know, sleeping. And so there are two things represented here. Apparently this person is not an atheist with the Madonna there. Betty Latimer: And apparently this person has some racist feelings or was insensitive to Mexicans, by putting that stereotype statue in his or her Urn. The cards, again, these are all continuing, you know, back to the whole idea of ignorance back to the thing that we produce a lot of children and that's our role in life. And we don't even know how. Audience Member: And immorality, like even baby will get pregnant. Betty Latimer: The red lips, the big eyes, bandanas. Audience Member: And then it's not, it's not being able to speak and see the rounded butt. Now, if Mammy had turned around you'd have got to see boobs. [Crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: I guess what's disturbing is that people buy these cards. I'm a little ashamed when I have to buy them. I'm outraged. Sometimes I try to find a white friend who will go in and buy something for me. It's a little bit embarrassing, you know, but the role the Black sheep play you know, I get the cotton picking Negro. Again, Africans do wear mask, very elaborate masks and they had great meaning for them. It's not that we want to deny that some of these things don't exist. The Indians don't wear feathers, but they are sacred items to them again. And they should not be used by other people in an accusatory way. I don't really see the difference between Oral Roberts and you know, the kind of ceremonies that Africans go through in order to for healing so forth, healing themselves of diseases. I visited JC Pennnys about a year ago. Just a little token that you say on your mantle or your table or, what are those little corner things you used to put in your corner? Betty Latimer: These are very common, it's nothing wrong with eating watermelon. It's probably nothing wrong with most of those. It's the way they're implied. Here is the dumb Black, the watermelon. Salt and pepper shakers. Dolls, the white doll is very beautiful and the Black doll is dressed up as a domestic. If you go to New Orleans today, you see this right like it is. Slave boy statue. Most libraries still maintain this book. Last time I conducted a seminar in, I was just one of the persons in a seminar for children's literature, at Simmons College in Boston with about a few weeks. Betty Latimer: And most of the participants were library elementary school teachers. And so, we tried to open up discussions in this book and these people were from all over the United States, librarians, teachers. And the majority sentiment was that this book is of all things very harmless to children. Audience Member: [inaudible] Betty Latimer: ... globalized [inaudible], well, well, it didn't really pertain to Blacks because [inaudible] wrote it with an Indian setting. There are no tigers in India, in Africa. And that children don't get any bad meaning from it in that. Rationality. Yes, it's a classic, right? That's one of just very drawn things. Thank you. And they enjoyed this when they were a child and we can't just destroy classics. Yes. Librarians consider something very sacred. The other one is, Oh, it's amusing for children. Betty Latimer: No, this is a very cute statement as I said when we first begin most children that are six years old, have never seen Indians. And it's really never happened, but they have an idea of notion what Indians should be like. So prejudice is not, does not come through the school contact so much as it does with the way the society passes it on through different vehicles. This is just one of the ways, there's TV, there are books, there are other kinds of channels through which prejudice is maintained. Betty Latimer: It's 12:30. I've got about 20 more minutes. Anybody game for about 20-25 minutes? The rightness of likeness concept. It was my belief in putting this presentation together. If there is a depreciation of darkness, of other kinds of cultures and minority colleges, there must also be a premium value put on whiteness, and I wondered how that was done. I began looking around and this is some good things I came up with. So we call it the rightness of whiteness concept. To be white is to be right. It is the norm. Now, I don't have time to go into it today because I thought we were going to have an afternoon session. But, if we were to take children's books and apply some of the syndromes that you've noticed here, and look for some of these syndromes, we would see these syndromes in those books. I have one book in particular, in my mind now where Black people are explained in terms of white people, you see what I mean. [inaudible] It is the norm that there are many different kinds of colors sitting here in this, in this room. Betty Latimer: But this is the norm. This pattern, the instructions say, use the white socks and white sock or tinted pink peach don't want the light stay right within that framework. At the preschool level, we begin to program children very early. What is white flour that comes home? Now, the sexism is very obvious in this picture because there are other role plays and others looking all sweet, very clean. He has the children under control. Daddy's been out and he's helped them to make it a better world. The instructions are color the picture, a significant portion of the picture he has already been colored. I didn't really discover this until I bought this book. And I remember myself very clearly. I remember the scene very clearly. I was standing in the kitchen one day and one of my children was four at that time. And she says, mama, read these words to me. And that's what brought it home to me. And she said, read these words. And I said, color the picture. And of course, like all other children, she colored the parts of the picture that were not already programmed for her. Color by number and everything is numbered except the skin and the white clouds. Audience Member: I have taught in art schools where, you know, at university level where my Black artists were told that one of the problems with their art is that they don't understand the skin color tone. Because like they make people Black and things like that, and they don't understand how they get flesh color like this and their lips and things on it. Always important. Betty Latimer: Right. I just have a very difficult time working with Black people. I can tell you a little story, but we really need to move on to this. There's typical kinds of things that kids get in school. My kid has brought this home from school. I really don't have to look hard to find these things. Little Red Riding Hood. There no X's on her hands or face. Paint by number, the number one color here is flesh. [crosstalk]. I find this extremely significant. Number one color is flesh. Audience Member: I wonder if the number, whatever it is, is Black. The last number- [Crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: Well, they had a violet and brown and dark green. Audience Member: Brown is [Crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: Flesh has actually become a color. Most of the things you give to children are [icrosstalk]. The puppets are white, so forth. Okay. I think that's all for that. Do you have any comments while I'm changing this slide? That's the end of that one, stereotypes involving [inaudible 00:01:04:37]. Any comments? Audience Member: I know that the junior high level now, the high school level, they are teaching about stereotypes. I think its just getting started. But I think the problem is trying to break down the stereotypes after getting so firmly entrenched that even if [inaudible] they can look at the stereotypes and verbalize that they understand that those stereotypes are being put upon them. To take the next step of awareness and relating it to the rest of the [crosstalk] when they're out of the classroom. Betty Latimer: Mm-hmm (affirmative). The school still has an obligation as an institution to do that though. And I firmly believe that it begins with the school of education and training teachers saying- [crosstalk]. Audience Member: Are there any teacher training schools that require courses to the sensitivity [inaudible]. Betty Latimer: I'm sure they are. There are a number of courses developing sexism in children's books, but I've never heard of a course called racism in children's books. We sort of pretend as though it doesn't exist. But yes, I would say that there are many human relations oriented courses now in schools of education approaching the subject matter from different angles, some are good and some are mediocre. Betty Latimer: But I think we're moving in that direction. Probably not at a pace that we should be. As you can see the stuff is so entrenched, we've got a long ways to go. And those tokens and toys and things that we've seen are produced by college educated people, for the most part. They're produced by well paid graphic artist, editors, and so forth. Betty Latimer: This is our section on sexism and the stereotypes. And we begin by quoting from Frederick Douglass, who says, "I have done very little in this world in which to glory except this one act, and I certainly glory in that. When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of woman, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act." By Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass was one of the earliest champions of women's rights. He was a great man. Betty Latimer: One are the major support systems for sexism is through advertising. Advertising places over emphasis on women's physical things. It tells the woman to use her body in order to attract a mate. Most advertisements don't focus on a woman's mind, but on her body. Women are continually prepping themselves for men. And the relationships that we see between men and women in advertisements are mostly on a sexual nature. They very seldom are relating to one another in any other roles. Now, if you can believe it, somebody offers a course in massaging your breasts and making them grow larger. Betty Latimer: I think the slides almost speak for themselves. Another thing they say is that a women is required to pay an inordinate amount of attention to her hair, and the details of her face... Always required continually beautify her face, her eyes. Audience Member: It is recommended by a dermatologist. Betty Latimer: Who we assume to be a man. And therefore that is the basis of the authority. Audience Member: And also even that the image is wrong. Audience Member: Not all of it is scientifically proper that you should make up those foul lines. You know, dermatologists will take them to do that. Betty Latimer: What were you saying? Audience Member: I was just in most of the pictures that you've shown it's not only a concern for, but the standard of beauty, even in females, is white. Betty Latimer: Yes, that is the norm. That's why we call it the rightness of whiteness. Not that we want to say it should be white, but there is a rightness of whiteness syndrome that is prevalent in Black society. Everything is measured against whiteness. That seems to be the norm. No woman wants to have dry aging skin. We just don't accept the normal deterioration of the body. Betty Latimer: And these ads have a way of making us women overly concerned with every detail part of our body. [crosstalk] Audience Member: What's the right way? Audience Member: Ya. [crosstalk] Audience Member: Oh, you mean that was a street marker giving direction? [crosstalk]. Audience Member: That's right, on whose street? Betty Latimer: We looked demur, beautiful, [inaudible 00:01:11:39]. Shirley Temple-like. Really just waiting for a man to come along. There's this shoulder syndrome I've noticed in adds. A lot of the advertisements showed women in the dependency role. Now we show women in action. All of those other pictures have been passive. This is how women now spend their time. In their hats- Audience Member: In their hats if the have them. Audience Member: Look at them grin. [crosstalk]. Audience Member: Grinning in [crosstalk]. Audience Member: [crosstalk]. Audience Member: I haven't seen many smiling women do that. Betty Latimer: In other words, the advertisements perpetuate the roles that women are supposed to play. Now, if whatever a man's displeased with, she's displeased with. He likes the coffee. Audience Member: And they obey. The house, and a job, [inaudible]. Audience Member: Is this an iron advertisement? Audience Member: And that makes it look good. Betty Latimer: No, I think there's something to do with some kind of liquid product that we've really forgotten. Audience Member: Ya, that's what it probably is. Like an iron energy. Betty Latimer: Do you mean like an iron supplement? Audience Member: I don't know. Audience Member: Like Geritol. Audience Member: Ya. Betty Latimer: Now women are shown making decisions. This is about the best one I've found. Audience Member: Every decision. Audience Member: Yes, [crosstalk]. Betty Latimer: The role again of dependency and the infantile behavior of woman. Infantile needs women. No ad maker would think about putting a man, a new man next to a new baby, and making any kind of connections. Betty Latimer: This is my favorite ad, Buddy Badger, because she always has to check out her truck. Wants you check out your transmission, before you go any further. It appears four times a year. It changes four times a year, according to the season, but she always has on a bikini. In the winter, she's going skiing. In the fall, she is carrying the football. And in the spring I think she has a baseball. And then in the summer I believe that she has golf clubs. This appears in the Milwaukee Journal, every single week, Buddy Badger. You know, Wisconsin is the Badger state. Women, and the connection with cars. It's another kind of syndrome you find in advertisement. Just some of the bold messages, advertising depicts. Very bold and blatant. And people say why are Blacks so angry, why are women angry? Betty Latimer: Again. Notice the relationship between men and women. It's either a sexual relationship or dependency relationship, or she's waiting on him. We're constantly preparing ourselves to be satisfactory for men. Now, the way men are depicted as... notice that men are engaged in some kind of activity? And they don't usually have a woman around when they're engaged in these activities. There's a secondary sexual message here. We call this the Madonna picture. Men are really decisive with what they... in the way they are pictured is very decisive. Another way in which sexism comes about is the use of language. Audience Member: Yeah. If I could have a minute. I wouldn't argue against the general image, but I think in all fairness you are missing some of the ways that the advertisements actually work against men creating a kind of studiable experience that they are expected to live up to. All of the body building, you lose your girl because you're a 90 pound weakling on a beach. On the other hand, you are the big gut sticking over the belly or you're losing your hair. And I think there's a kind of image in operation there, which is actually anti-masculine. And interestingly, it's almost a parallel of what's being done to women. Betty Latimer: That's right. We all suffer from stereotypes. And I don't think that we realize it. I think you've made an extremely good point in that men are stereotyped and they have role sets for them too. And if they don't live up to those role sets, they are a failure. Audience Member: They become woman-like. Betty Latimer: Yeah. Audience Member: And that's the worst thing. Audience Member: And that's the most [crosstalk] worst thing they can do. Betty Latimer: But even before they become women-like, I think it's a good point to note that, they too, must always be successful. Must always have a job. They must be ambitious. You know, if a man does not take a promotion in a company, because he maybe doesn't want the headaches of the executive or management job, that isn't good. He feels that pressure. Men really have very few choices in life too. Audience Member: I wouldn't be able to do 100%. Audience Member: Ya. Betty Latimer: Some of that comes out in my script. I am just not in the mood to read it today. Audience Member: I think what all of these end up is they're dehumanizing, as far as men, women, and minority groups. It is dehumanizing. It does not give a person the freedom to really be themselves, to be human. But the men's images that they project are constructed to a certain extent. You know what I mean? The man is pushed to move, and even though it's dehumanizing to him, as far as rest of society's concerned, these are constructive uses for stereotypes. The man may lose his mind, but he's constantly pushed to be a success, to take things under control. Even though it affects the individual. You think of the general. Audience Member: I don't want to interrupt this too long. I certainly agree with the emphasis on the image of success and achievement. But I think I'm still coming back to the physical. That perhaps the woman looking at these images would not react quite as much as the man who's continuously being told it is the tall man who gets the girl. It is the man of this size. So if you don't fit this norm, and that's an awful lot of pressure. And then notice all the images of the men who do have the [crosstalk] girls. You have to have a particular size [crosstalk] physique. And of course you're buying particular kinds of cars. And true enough, there's the push to get the success to win this. But there's still the threat of failure in this relationship. The woman can't get the man, can't hold the man, unless she fits this image. And on the other hand, the man can't get the women unless he fits these images. Betty Latimer: Right. There's no doubt about it. I mean that once we have set up stereotypes for one group and the stereotypers, they convince themselves of the illusion. Okay, you really have to bear with me. That's your other comments? I think we'll just cut it off here because we have gone over a good breaking point. Betty Latimer: There are other ways, as I say, in which these stereotypes appear in line in children's books, and magazines, through TV. In almost all of our audio, visual educational learning experiences, these stereotypes come across, whether they're for minorities, or women, or men. That's the big point that we wanted to get across. The second point of course, was that as educators, or teachers to be, or people in leadership roles, we want to have a cautious consciousness so that in whatever realm of work we find ourselves in we do something about eliminating those stereotypes. I guess that was our main objective. That's all.