What are stereotypes?

“Stereotypes, however inaccurate, are one form of representation.  Like fictions, they are created to serve as substitutions, standing in for what is real.  They are there not to tell it like it is but to invite and encourage pretense.  They are a fantasy, a projection onto the Other that makes them less threatening.  Stereotypes abound when there is distance.  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.”

bell hooks,”Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination”