How You Look Is Who You Are

I started watching “The Wire” the summer and was immediately hit with the shows relevance to the topics we have been discussing. The character of Stringer Bell is for me a great example of the idea of “doing race”. Stringer Bell is portrayed as not being the stereotypical gangster, and the show is a constant juxtaposition of this fact. On the one hand we are presented with the stereotypical black gangster. These individuals give credence to the idea that “race is a complex system of ideas and practices regarding how some visible characteristics of human bodies relate to people’s character, intellectual capacity, and patterns of behavior.” (Moya and Markus 22) Therefore a gangster is supposed to be one who wears baggy clothes, chains, and carry a gun. His outward appearance dictates that he is a violent and a not too bright criminal. Stringer Bell, however, looks nothing like this. He wears fitted slacks, nice shoes, wears glasses and even attends a night class for economics. When looking at him you see a well-educated businessman not a drug dealer who applies these econ principles to his drug trade. 

The show constantly presents these two different views of the gangster challenging our preconceived notions of the “typical” black gangster. We bring to the viewing of the show this set idea of what makes a gangster. People are immediately classified into a category based on public perception and race is something that people are conditioned to perceive. That is why I liked Stringer as a character. When you look at him you are deceived by his appearance. He is anomaly that turns our idea of a gangster and confuses our notion that outward appearance solely determines the category that individuals are classified into.