Inferential racism, according to "The Whites of their Eyes" by Stuart Hall, is when we say, "that's just the way these people are" and make a judgement without taking into consideration that that these may be racial assumptions and are often untrue. From this perspective, if a few people of a certain race behave or speak in a certain way, they draw an immediate conclusion that everyone of their race fits this category- lumping them all together according to assumptions about their race. Often, especially in media, whites are the dominant group from which others are judged. In this way, there are three main racist images that characters assume in movies or television. The "slave-figure," the "savage" or "native," and "the clown." Fez from that 70's show is an example of a "native" image- he is a Mexican immigrant while the other characters are all "average" white Americans. Although his character is satirical, we tend to agree with his behaviors and say "yeah that's the way they are!" while we laugh as his antics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnFT5n6hDvA This scene is Red teaching Fez how to pronounce the word "America" and how to generally be an American. It's a form of inferential racism because we watch this and may assume that this is a valid representation of an immigrant- someone who lives in America but cannot say the word and comes across as less intelligent than other white Americans.
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