Why we entertain
...ered to be intellectuals as a whole. So when doing things that are considered “cool” like entertaining, most people are going to be more receptive, and most people are going to want to listen. I think another possible reason that black people as a whole are known to excel primarily in the entertainment industry is due to stereotypes. Racial stereotypes are usually considered to be bad and are thought to cause problems. Yet stereotypes can also be beneficial to a person. Asians are stereotypically considered smart, and kids pick up this stereotype early on in there academic careers. Since this stereotype exists most people always want the Asian kid in there group for projects. Black people are stereotypically considered to be great athletes. For example, when my friend Patrick (who is Asian) and I go to play basketball at a court we have never been too I am almost always picked over him. We both are in shape and of similar height yet for some reason I always get picked over him allowing me to play more games throughout any given day. Patrick and I both know that the reason that this little idiosyncrasy exists is for the sole fact that I’m black, and black people are supposed to be great athletes. I think this same idiosyncrasy doesn’t stop at the neighborhood basketball courts, in fact it’s probably the reason more then one young black kid got started in the entertainment industry. Then I started thinking about how stereotypes are started. Although they are frowned upon they usually do have some truth to them. I realized that I had some stereo types in my mind that I knew were stereotypes but yet I still used the stereotype as a basis for my thoughts and actions because I felt it was rooted in truth. Growing up I hung out with all types of people that were all types of races. And in my experience a lot of the time my black friends were the ones who were always looking for an easy way out. Now I’m not saying that no one else from another race likes to slack, but it was usually my black friends who had the bad grades and didn’t seem to care. I won’t get into why they got the bad grades or why they didn’t care but maybe the reason why blacks try so hard to excel at athletics or comedy is because it’s an easy way to make an awesome living without working hard for grades. The final theory that I came up with for why most of the famous black people are entertainers is for the simple fact that there are already a lot of black entertainers. Just like Bell Hooks said we see ourselves in certain things that look like us. So when a young black child turns on the T.V. and he sees a man that “looks” like him, he sees him self in that man whether he kno...