Is it really society?

Today I want to talk about the Anderson Cooper video. As soon as watched the video I knew that I wanted to write my blog about this topic. As I have expressed my feelings in my past blog and during class discussions I am against stereotypes since I am a minority and my Mexican origin is often stereotyped.
As I was watching the video and the children responses I could not help but to ask myself the following questions: Why are this children as such a young age are already stereotyping their own race? Who told them the darker color people were the "ugly, bad, or dumb kids?" Is this something they just assume as they grow older? How do they know the difference between being black, white, or brown? Are the responses they are giving have something to do with personal experiences as such a young age?  Or is society training our brains without us even realizing? WHY???!!! Everybody has different answers and opinions and perhaps nobody will ever  know why. I believe that some of these children responses could be reflecting their parents and families beliefs but I also think that society plays a huge factor in this children responses. For example; Cinderella, Snow White, The Beauty and the Beast, Woodie and Buzz from Toy Story are all white characters that are the "Heroes" in these children movies. The princesses are beautiful and the Super Heroes are strong and kill the bad guys and every kid wants to be the main character that everybody loves and thinks they are beautiful. I remember when I was little my sister and I used to fight because we both wanted to be the pink power ranger, Kimberly was white and the prettiest one, she was the most popular and was one of the main power rangers. When I was little and used to fight with my sister I didn't really know that people didn't like black or I could not really understated why white were always the princesses I just knew that's what I liked and couldn't explain why until I grew older. I am not sure if I thought they were pretty because they were white, but I am sure that if the princesses were the opposite color, I would have liked them and would want to be them, but the problem was that they never were the opposite color.
I think that is up to us to raise the younger generation the right way and away from all the stereotypes. Even though racism and stereotypes will always be there it is up to us to make the difference and not let the "ignorance" take over us. I found a really interesting video that I would like to share with you guys. This shows the sad stereotype against dark colored people and could potentially be an explanation on why children pick the dark color as the "bad one".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAkDHuimJRc

I-Quest

As I was reading Dr. Crafton's Book Chapter, I could not help but to feel familiarized with some of the things Dr. Crafton shared with us. One of the things that really touched my heart was her Cultural Biography. I feel like Dr. Crafton could be a role model for a lot of us. When describing her childhood, I was thinking that she is a very strong woman. Going through  a rough childhood and not let that affect your education decisions is not a easy thing. A lot of individuals use rough childhoods as an excuse to not succeed in life. Luckily, this is not Dr. Crafton's case.
I also felt very familiar with "The Danger of a Single Story". As I was reading, I kept catching myself thinking of personal experiences with this certain topic. When I was reading about the Nigerian author that felt ashamed when she went to Mexico because of the "stories" or I must say Stereotypes she heard of Mexicans I began to think the things us immigrants go through in this country. Being Mexican in this country is not easy, I was born in Mexico, therefore, I am 100% Mexican. Even though, I have lived here almost all my life, and are a US Citizen I sometimes still feel "out of place". One time my family an I were at a restaurant, Spanish being our first language, we speak in Spanish most of the time. We were laughing and talking about our family vacation, but then some other guest said out loud how much he was bothered by us "Illegal Immigrants" speaking Spanish.  I felt extremely offended and I felt bad for my family and the bad experience, I  think my family and I and any other immigrants  should not leave our roots behind or forget our own language just because I am in the US. All my family speak fluent English, however, when we are together we speak our language without the intentions of offending those around us. It is sad how we automatically Stereotype other people, for example at that restaurant, "They are illegal and they should learn English", that certain individual was just stereotyping us, not even knowing my family and I do speak English and are US Citizens. This specific example leaves me with a couple of questions. Why do we stereotype? At some point, is it possible to believe our own stereotypes and loose our own identity? Stereotyping has to do with social class most of the time? I do believe that by repeating the "same story" over and over again, can leads us to confuse stereotypes with reality and become what others say we are.