Can we map attitudes and stereotypes?

I stumbled upon this "map of stereotypes" on the internet recently. It was meant, I'm assuming, as a light-hearted look at the stereotypes WE hold about different parts of the country. It left me wondering though - who is the WE?

I started to think how this map might look like and what it might mean depending on who drew it. If it was written by a person of color, might it be different? Would history play a role?

If it was a White person that made this map, then the reference to "fried chicken" and "yes sir & yes ma'am" might allude to commonly held racist beliefs about Black individuals.

I believe that it would be extremely different  for a Black person (what stereotypes would the South hold?) or a Latino or Latina author (I'd like to see what they'd write for Arizona....and what about those 22 states that have copied SB1070?).  Imagine what the map would look like from a Native American perspective?


It seems that it's easy to joke around and poke fun at stereotypes when you are the one holding many, the one that maybe doesn't come into contact with others' stereotypes about yourself or your community on a daily basis. I created the map below of the stereotypes I hold; this is an exercise in becoming aware of what biases and beliefs I hold, not a statement that they are correct or founded!

Okay - couple of things here:

1. Just realized that I am no longer good at geography...what happened?
2. There's whole parts of the country that I don't even think about. i.e., the "Bible Belt" (how I view it)
3. I have a lot of stereotypes about New England and Massachusetts in general, because I grew up there. I found that although MA is a liberal state in many ways, my area of the state is extremely conservative. I hold lots of stereotypes about the southcoast of MA in particular, including that all the men are fishermen who are addicted to drugs. This is a crazy generalization, and it tends to discount the heritage of my community as well as all of the individuals that certainly don't use drugs. This stereotype is borne of my personal experiences - I knew and dated quite a few of those substance using sailors - and it's left me bitter in some way and cynical about my hometown. So this is how a lot of stereotypes begin, right? Taking one personal experience and generalizing it to a much larger group of people? And of course, this stereotype is based in some kernel of truth - that my hometown is the heroin capital of the northeast - and that's what often confuses the issue of stereotypes. What comes first - the statistics, or the stigma?
4. I have a really negative view of this country. I usually don't feel any sort of patriotism, and that's not something I'm proud of. I do think there are things to be proud of here, it's just hard to remember them when I've based my career on working to solve some of the (many) major problems the US faces.