Stereotypes

A friend of mine sent me a text suggesting I blog about stereotypes, nothing specific, just stereotypes in general. That's a fairly broad topic, and one that could lend itself to more discussion than could really fit into a blog post. I'm willing to give it a shot though. I like a challenge.

First of all, let's be clear. Stereotypes are not just harmless jokes about Asians being good at math or white people can't dance. Stereotypes are dangerous. They breed fear and hatred. People have been killed over stereotyping. They lead us to make irrational assumptions on an entire group of people, be it racial, gender-biased, ethnic, or whatever the case may be. Even without being aware at times we are doing it.

How many times have you heard someone make a comment about welfare recipients being lazy or irresponsible? Is it true that some people receiving government assistance take advantage of the system? Yes. Is it true they all do? No. But that doesn't stop some people from making broad, sweeping generalizations based on an inaccurate stereotype. What may in fact (or not) be a representation of a very small minority, begins to become accepted as a universal truth. These unsupported biases are not only hurtful to the citizens who are being wrongfully categorized, but lend themselves to being accepted as the popular opinion. Popular opinion can have the power to sway policies and regulations enacted by elected officials in an effort to placate their constituency.

Not all Muslims are terrorists. Not all Christians are bible-thumping evangelicals. Not all Republicans hate gays. Not all Southerners are racist. Not all teenagers are self-absorbed brats.

You get the point.

So how do we overcome this? How do we gain understanding of that which we are unfamiliar? The old proverb about walking a mile in another man's shoes is appropriate here. At the heart of the matter is a lack of empathy for each other. And that lacking stems from inadequate knowledge. Our outlook and views on society have been formed over time by the experiences we've have had in our individual lives. Our prejudices, our threshold for what is or isn't acceptable, even our religious preferences and choice of companions have all been molded by our own singular life experience. We can't change that.

What we can change is how we react to the world around us. Once we accept that our perceptions are biased, and make no mistake, they absolutely are, then we can then step away from ourselves and try to look at things more objectively.

If we never leave the confines of our own back yard, it's easy to fall into the mindset that it's the best yard; that other yards are somehow inferior. If we only surround ourselves with like-minded people, we deny ourselves the opportunity of being exposed to a new way of thinking. We become closed-down, narrow-minded, so filled with absolute certainty in our own beliefs, we begin to accept them as fact rather than mere opinion.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't have convictions. But we should arrive at them after careful deliberation, considering all sides, with thorough knowledge of why we believe what we do.

By gaining perspective into the lives of others, we gain understanding. Our perspectives shift, views are challenged and we become more accepting of what is foreign to us, thus diminishing our need for useless stereotypes.


Author's Note - My advice, if I have any worth offering:
Be diverse in your choice of acquaintances. Travel as often as possible, as far as your resources will let you go. Keep your mind open to new ideas. Be kind to one another.

Experience the world through someone else's eyes. You never know what you might see.