Stereotypes

[crazyflight]

If this thread can't be made, I'm fine with that. I just thought that stereotyping is a serious enough issue to be put in the Hall of Speakers.

We all stereotype in our everyday lives. For example, "Wow, that must be a woman driver." Or, "Jamaicans are always late!" A stereotype is a generalization that is often invalid or untrue, and is focused on a certain group of people in a usually mild offensive manner. To make a valid generalization, you must have facts to support whatever you're saying.

I am usually very offended by stereotypes, and even if they aren't targeted towards me, it just doesn't seem right to stereotype a group of people. My best friend is Jamaican, and another one is Jewish. Jews are not cheap, if that's what stereotypical people think.

I don't think stereotyping is really that serious. I still think that it is a topic for discussion.

[BradTheMad]

Stereotyping can be racist but sometimes it really just is something that is stuck in people's mind. They don't dislike the group they are talking about but accept that some people "are a certain way".

I think we all stereotype to a point and whilst some stereotypes are just hilariously funny they can become very negative if people act upon them. Some stereotypes are true however, we Jews pretty much agree that we are a headstrong people for instance. The cheap one is a very negative one that comes straight from national socialist propaganda. Most Jews were/are cheap because we aren't rich and we just cannot throw around money. Against that is the other stereotype that all Jews are filthy rich...

[TxCat]

Stereotyping, ultimately, is just another human classification tool. Used properly, it allows us to organize and define the world around us and to make choices. Improperly used, it becomes an issue. I believe that most stereotypes have their root in an observation which can generally be said to be true. Whether they're helpful or not depends again upon how they're used.

I personally try not to stereotype; I'm more inclined to classify and judge a person by his or her actions, body language, and behaviors than I am by social generalizations. That doesn't mean I don't; everyone, I think, has subconscious expectations related to stereotyping. Most people, for instance, would assume that a police officer is honest and follows the law. This isn't always the case and I'm sometimes disappointed but it's one of those things which is generally true.

Sometimes stereotypes are detrimental. People often assume that because I am morbidly obese, my health problems are caused by the obesity. In reality, it's the other way around. I had one health problem which is not curable which causes obesity and when I injured my spine my ability to be active decreased. Without the ability to exercise because of those conditions, I got even larger. People also assume that I'm too lazy to walk any more and that's why I use a wheelchair; in reality, I use the wheelchair because I have spinal stenosis, four slipped discs, two dessicated discs, and a narrowing of the spinal canal which will eventually paralyze me from the waist down.

The average person doesn't care about this, though; they're working on stereotypes. Fat people are, according to those stereotypes:

- couch potatoes
- eating too much
- exercising too little/not at all
- dirty
- lazy
- unintelligent
- devoid of feelings

I don't know why, other than the existence of this stereotype, it seems to be all right for a child in a store to point and yell, "Mama, look at that fat lady!" when it would definitely NOT be acceptable to point and yell, "Mama, look at that black man!"

Occasionally stereotypes are dangerous. It's very difficult for me to get medical care for the conditions I have because most doctors work on the assumption that being fat is the problem and that if they fix that problem, all the other problems will simply go away. I've often been given improper diagnoses and the wrong treatment based on those stereotypical assumptions. Currently, for instance, I have a non-working gut. Whatever I eat gets flushed out of the system within twenty minutes of ingesting it. When I told the doctors this, they didn't feel inclined to treat the problem --- because it's causing me to lose weight. They've failed to see that it's also causing nutritional imbalances, muscle wasting, yellowing of the skin, and a host of other issues which really ought to be attended to.

That's just one example. I find, sadly, that extreme uses of stereotype are often at the root of most human violence: someone didn't like the way someone else was supposed to be or was ill treated by a particular person once and has since applied that single negative experience as a filter to all people who fit that general category (whether it's Jews, homosexuals, Goths, pagans, men, women, etc).

[ryer]

Although stereotyping is prejudice, I believe stereotypes do not come from nowhere. I'm Asian and a lot of people make Asian jokes (tiny slit eyes, being studious, etc) and I laugh because amazingly, it's true (at least about 99% of the Asians that I know). I've also been called 'emo' and although I don't approve of the extreme negativity, closemindedness and general 'poking fun at troubled teenagers' attitude associated with the term nowadays, stereotypically speaking I do fit the requirements, so I can't really argue. If someone refuses to recognize that stereotypes are only general/traditional and usually humorous assumptions and take it as fact or a basis for discrimination or prejudice though, that's just plain stupid. I admit I do stereotype others by first impressions (type of clothing/music they like, their popularity/voice, etc - and I would say the majority of people do form opinions on first impression of the person, like me) but I stay open and remind myself that stereotypes rarely tell the whole story, and as long as someone keeps that attitude of openness and care, I don't think stereotypes are a problem - I think it's human nature to judge first based on preconceived notions, not only with people and racial / cultural stereotypes, but with everything else, our entire surroundings. If we were open to every single thing not being what it seems, our brain would explode! Stereotypes, I think, is a naturally human-biased tool for quickly judging others and situations for the most appropriate action/response, and isn't necessarily racism or discrimination. Admittedly it's also really funny, as long as it's not taken too far. Well that's my word on it

[GrowlingCupcake]

Just want to point out that stereotypes can also be positive:
- Indians are good speakers
- People with college degrees are more intelligent
- Asians are good at math
- Africans dance well

I don't agree with any stereotyping, though it is something everyone does, but I just wanted to point out that it can be "positive" too.

[Bandita]

I personally think it's interesting trying to explain stereotypes to people from other cultures. I work as a tutor, and I often work with ESL (English as a Second Language) students who have never heard of common stereotypes in America. In one of the English classes, a group was reading Erasure, a story about a black man who tries to overturn stereotypes about African Americans but winds up becoming a part of one himself as he invents a stereotypical personality that he eventually becomes absorbed in. Several students from China were having trouble with this. One of the essays they had required them to show how the main character was overturning stereotypes, but since the students didn't actually know what was a black stereotype and what wasn't, they were very confused.

I also had a student from Europe who had some hilarious problems with stereotypes. In one vignette from the book Erasure, a black man wins a spelling bee over a white competitor, and the audience is stunned because they expected, based on their stereotypes, that black people were not as smart as white people. This student gave a lengthy, rambling description of this incident, then followed it up by writing "It would be like if a white girl and an Indian girl were in a spelling bee. And the white girl won. Because everyone knows Indian girls are way smarter than white girls. It would be very shocking." I had to LOL a little, because she was presenting the stereotype of white girls being dumber than Indian girls as a fact rather than a stereotype.

[Raneth]

Stereotypes are interesting. It seems many people want to embrace them when they are positive (Asians are studious, Africans dance well) but as soon as you hit on one that's negative, it's suddenly not PC at all to accept them.

Stereotypes are also self-fulfilling. There's a phenomenon called stereotype threat where if a member of a group is reminded of the fact that they belong to a certain group, their performance on things can change. Asian women given a math test will perform better or worse on that test compared to controls if they are at first primed with information about being Asian (the asians are good at math stereotype) or being female (the women are bad at math stereotype) respectively. Black students, when reminded of their race, perform worse on exams compared to unprimed black students or white students because of the ingrained stereotype that blacks are dumber than whites.

I personally hate stereotypes, negative or positive. People sometimes rely on them to made snap judgments, but the time when we had to make quick decisions about someone for safety purposes or otherwise is mostly over. Applying blanket heuristics to a person like that is a relic of the past. Unfortunately its also hard to keep from doing it, especially when you get a lot of information that reinforces the stereotype. I try to at least keep the stereotypes separate from racial or group traits-I'd much rather accept "Asian culture encourages lots of studying" than "Asian people are smarter."

[ParaLLL]

One thing I think is interesting about stereotypes is that it's much more acceptable to stereotype people who are viewed as having an advantage; even if someone points out it's a stereotype people generally don't care because the targeted group is somehow at an advantage. WASP stereotypes (in the US) or American stereotypes (in other countries) both seem to fall into this a lot.

(And I know that's a really short comment, but I'm about to have to leave, so I'll come back and add more on what's already been mentioned and expand on this later. I just wanted to point this out now, since I didn't see it already mentioned.)

[crazyflight]

I am Caucasian, but many people call me a nerd because of how smart I am. I don't like when they do that, but it isn't as bad as when someone called me Chinese. I asked them why they thought that, because I don't look like many Chinese people. They said that they had called me that because I was smart, and that white people shouldn't be as smart as I am. And in the state spelling bee in New York, I placed fourth out of many kids, and I wasn't surprised to see that the majority of kids participating were Asian.

Stereotypes that are positive are also negative in a way, because they are demeaning other races or groups. Saying "Indians are smart" is almost the same as saying "Whites are not as smart as Indians," and then that can be taken further to saying "Whites aren't smart." But sometimes stereotypes are really true and are not demeaning another group. Those are just valid generalizations. They aren't being rude to anybody, but then again, they may not be positive to anybody either.

[Riverfox]

well i know about stereotypes eh! But they're all true in my case ya know eh? I have a pet beaver, live in an igloo, (and still have electricity) i ride a poler bear to school where we learn how to make maple syrup and build snowman because i'm a canadian eh!

for those steryotypes, i find the fact that people believe lots of them hilarious! but the racist ones just change the way that people think about others because of their race, and are just stupid and mean.