They are an invention, a pretense that one knows when the steps that would make real knowing possible cannot be taken or are not allowed. Racism means treating members of a race, such as whites, negatively and differently simply because they are white. In their core, many whites and some people of color believe this. White supremacy is not only a residue of slavery, to be sure. A glib but true statement is that in a racist culture, everybody is racist.
Stereotypes are sets of beliefs about characteristics attributed to members of a certain group.
Stereotypes are overgeneralizations and oversimplifications. For instance, a stereotype of U.S. Americans might be that they are individualistic, self-oriented, materialistic, capitalistic, and ethnocentric. If a Korean executive held that set of beliefs about U.S. Americans, then routinely and probably unconsciously, the Korean would assume that all the characteristics were applicable to all U.S. Americans. The Anglo dream is as much an unrealistic view of our society as the ethnic stereotype. Berkowitz Just think.