Can a stereotype be justified?

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I will explain this with as little detail as possible, but it's 100% true.

Several years ago I was in the fortunate (for an Aspie) position of commuting to work by rail every day. Back then (less than 10 years ago) it was still fairly common for people to read paperback or even hard-bound books rather then use a Kindle or some sort of tablet (although a Kindle is far superior to any tablet for this purpose).

One day, I just happened to become conscious of the apparent phenomenon that every black person I saw reading - young, older, male, or female - was reading something that had a religious i.e. Christian theme of some sort. So I decided to continue to pay conscious attention to this. I suppose I would quit as soon as I saw a black person reading something of a clearly secular nature (such as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which is what everybody seemed to be reading at the time).

Not once did I see a black person reading anything secular. If you were to consider this as a stereotype, then I would have to say that it's a completely valid stereotype. Note this has to do specifically with African Americans not the Senegalese immigrant you might have seen yesterday evening on the Paris Metro.

I feel I can say this is a valid stereotype about African Americans. It doesn't necessarily imply anything negative about them (in fact my boss is African American, I've never seen her reading a book, though!).

Does anyone think I have a problem with this?

Maybe a valid stereotype for the small number of people who you happened to take note of and who happened to be on the same schedule as you and who also happened to take public transportation and happened to live in the same radius of you.

So from a purely objective standpoint: no, unvalid.

Your hypothesis would be thrown out due to insufficient data, non-random participant pool, an excess of external variables, outdated data (old memories are not considered scientific in any way and can easily be warped over time), and no control group/baseline.

Stereotypes don't come out of nothing, it's often an exaggeration of a behavior pattern, and a simplification as well.

The black people who commuted at the same train with you is a much more specific group than african americans, they live in a certain region, belong to a certain class, etc. It's good to take in consideration how it interacts with their race.

But I think it's absolutely normal to understand the world thru this kind of patterns, but we should be aware on how limited is those stereotypes and don't make judgments based solely on them.

Yes if you were walking down a Paris Banlieue you might need to stereotype your surroundings as a potential a threat for your own safety.

An exageration based on truth. The church is central to a lot of African-American social life. Soul and R&B music borrows heavily from gospel music. A lot if not most of the singers in those genres started out in thier church choir.

stereotypes can be rationalized but not justified.

A few points based on what has been said.

My life experience regarding stereotypes is that they never hold up under scrutiny. What shocked me was how uniform my observations were in this situation. I should have stressed this. I sometimes assume too much as to how much others understand the basis for my thinking.

What I reported is not racist. I know enough to say it wasn't racist; and no, I am not one of those people who loves to rail again "political correctness". I saw what I saw. In fact, I didn't try to draw any sort of conclusion about what I saw, except for the possibility that some stereotypes might actually be valid. I can think of some hypotheses I could have considered, but I won't suggest any here.

You can think it racist if you prefer. It's not an argument I would try to win.

As to who these people were that I observed, I can safely suppose that they were all traveling to office jobs in DC which is the seat of the Federal Government and not much else, and a great many of them, if not most, have University degrees of some sort.

Not so sure if it matters, but that rail line passes through Prince Georges County which is distinguished for being the wealthiest majority black county in the US (you can Google it). Perhaps a false correlation, but an interesting fact nonetheless.

Why I didn't see anyone reading a cheap romance novel as @Campin_Cat would have predicted, I couldn't say. Probably would have eventually, but after a while I lost interest.

I've seen African-Americans on the subway read secular books.

I've seen white people on the subway read the Bible.

The solution to the OP's dilemma: go out in the world more.

You can think that most chickens are covered in feathers, when, sometimes, they are molting. This is a bias, and it is also, generally true, in spite of rare exceptions to the rule.

Does the bias come from personal experience, or is it a flight of fancy, like saying that most cats are dressed like Puss in Boots.

I live in the DC area and ride the Metro too.

See folks of every skin color on it. Most of them seemed to be hooked up to electronic devices rather than reading anything.

A stopped clock is right twice a day. The odds are that you will occasionally see something in real life that conforms to a stereotype.

For example there are stereotypes about every state in the Union, including Massachusettes.


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