An Introduction: At the Root of Identity, from Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us by Claude M. Steele is a social psychology paper about the effects of stereotyping on individuals. Steele utilizes everything from personal anecdotes to Ivy League research papers to back his ideas of social contingencies. Every incident in the introduction has to do with effects of race, gender, or any other inherent social condition, and the effect these conditions have on the individuals who possess them.
1.”I have a memory of the first time I realized I was black (pg. 537).” Steele starts the introduction with a bit of a humorous statement about the innocence and delightful ignorance of children. The child had likely many times seen his black skin in a mirror or reflection, but up to that point, never saw it in a social context. Steele only realized what “black” meant when he was told that he could not swim with the white kids. This was a bluntly yet relatively mild form of racism for a kid growing up during the civil rights movement to experience. Steele may not have been a victim of police brutality or lynch mobs, but he was denied the swimming pool, which to him was enough to learn
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This caused him to be seen differently, as an educated, refined person, not as a violence-prone African-American youth (pg,542).”
This line shows how much relatability can humanize and change perception. The white people on the street would likely see themselves as educated and refined people, so when they were able to see a black man as such, their fear shrunk. They could relate to the black man for once. They were not scared of him because they assumed that no violence-seeking man would know the works of Antonio Vivaldi, which is funny because the white people on the street likely knew as much Vivaldi as the people they were scared