As Rieder describes, minorities, particularly blacks in this case, were used as scapegoats for people to blame their problems on. Even within their own ethnic groups people created sub-groups which they felt superior to, such as the Jewish woman talking about people of lower class. By uniting against a common group they strengthened their own ties to people of the same culture or mindset who they felt they could relate to. Instead of trying to sympathize with their struggle or see difficulties from the perspective of blacks, whites just associated negative characteristics as being inherent to blacks.
One example is thinking of those who used slang or spoke in a particular way as being less educated. The graffiti in the ghetto, which of course is of no comparison to fine art, was also frowned upon. Immorality became one of the characteristics synonymous with blacks, including behaviors such as drinking. All of these were used as justifications for thinking of blacks as lesser than whites.
I think this characterization of “ghetto” neighborhoods and what comes to mind when thinking of the people who live there and activities that go on has persisted. Today some of the associations including drug and alcohol use, violence, crime, poverty, use of profanity or slang, and graffiti. This combination of images and ideas forms a stereotypical norm that becomes widely accepted and then is used to make assumptions about the people living there and how they embrace and bring upon themselves the bad things they’re associated with.
