Stereotyping can be very harmful. It very much exists today, and we even discussed personal experiences of it in class. Event schema's are a crucial part of stereotyping and i don't believe that will stop, even though it can be silly. After 9/11 airports became very cautious of the Arab race, which isn't fair because not every Arab is a terrorist. But clearly stereotyping isn't fair. It's not right to think that when someone is over weight that they are just lazy, when sometimes its in your genes. It's not right to assume that every black male walking down the street is going to rob or mug you. In American we have such a wide variety of cultures and ethnic backgrounds that we tend to categorize (stereotype) certain people from what we are used to seeing. I saw on the news that a school in Pennsylvania wanted to separate students based on gender and race while taking tests for a certain amount of time during the day. This seemed crazy to me because of far we have came in this country to get away from segregation. As far as seeing if the scores would be higher when being around people just like you cant be evaluated accurately that way. Possibly separating gender can help from being distracted, but the thought that white students will score better around white students is bizarre.
People are always going to judge others. For that reason alone i believe stereotyping will always be around. Even when i was in grade school and we had to pick books from the library, i would literally choose my book by the cover. As silly as that sounds, that's exactly what we are doing to other human beings everyday. Beyond stereotyping race other case also can have a big impact on others. For examples are the way someone may dress may automatically put them in a category to be stereotyped. In this world today if we see a girl with shorter hair, basketball shorts, and a t-shirt we will stereotype her and say "she must be gay". It can be so hurtful to someones self-esteem when these accusations aren't true. Even though this may never end, we all should work on not always voicing our stereotypical thoughts because you never know how deeply hurtful you are being.
I do agree with what the Blogger has to say about how stereotypes will never go away. Its not a bad thing that we stereotype people, its a bad thing when we act upon those stereotypes. People are always going to judge whether your black,white, small, big, blonde, brunnette. People are always going to look at you a certain way. Us as individuals have to make people see us for who we are and not what "our" group looks like. We can not internalize the stereotype that is given to us or all we are doing is allowing people to think that the stereotype is correct about that one specific group. Its not just the people who are being stereotypes who have to make people see past the stereotype, the people who are stereotyping need to not let that judgment get in the way of knowing that person or at least giving them a chance.
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