The Fuss About Stereotypes

Let’s be honest, stereotypes exist for a reason. Why are we so afraid of stereotypes? The obvious answer is because we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But if a book about cars has a bunch of pictures of cars on the cover, isn’t it safe to assume the book is about cars? And if 99% of the books about cars have covers with pictures of cars, isn’t there a pretty good chance the next book you pick up with cars on the cover will be about just that? Stereotypes don’t come out of nowhere—they’re formed because of obvious patterns and trends. To exclude stereotypes would be to leave out a large part of understanding people and you’d end up doing yourself a disservice to your own realizations.

Most stereotypes aren’t even insulting. But we’ve become so politically correct that we’re afraid to say anything to generalize people different from us. White people can’t dance. Big deal. Black people are loud. So what. Asians are book smart. Ok…? Go to a social gathering where there is dancing and watch the white guys. They are goofy and they can’t even help it. Dance lessons would not teach these guys how to move, they just have no rhythm. Go to the movie theatre the next time Tyler Perry comes out with a comedy. Black people are loud…they just are! Go to the best schools in America and look at who is getting the highest grades—it’s the Asians. The language structure of the far eastern countries actually predisposes children to be able to think more quickly than their English speaking counterparts, but that’s another discussion. Asians are smarter by the book than most other ethnicities. So have I offended anyone yet? Italians eat a lot, Irish drink, southerners move slowly, northeasterners are pushy, the Bible Belt is conservative, Hollywood is liberal. We know all this already! And we wouldn’t all know unless it was all true. So what’s the big deal?

Then there are the stereotypes that people don’t want to touch, such as the association of Muslims with terrorism. Some people are still uncomfortable sitting next to a Middle-Eastern person in an airport. Federal agencies would likely admit that Middle-Easterners are screened a little more heavily at airports, and people in traditional Muslim garb even more so. So how did we get here? It’s not like overnight we were given a reason to suspect Muslims of terrorism. Oh wait, that’s EXACTLY what happened. So a group of Muslims hijacked some planes, crashed them into buildings, attempted to crash into the White House, caused the greatest act of terrorism on American soil, continue to call for the deaths of Americans, and we’re supposed to just let all that go by the wayside? Then some jerk puts a bomb in his shoes so now we all have to walk through the airport in our freaking socks?!

Ok, let’s take a step back. I put my garbage outside by the curb every Thursday night and on Friday morning before I go to work, I see the garbage tipped over and holes in the bag. I get suspicious. Who would do that? So I stayed up one Thursday night to watch, and what do you know, there’s a group of raccoons ravaging my trash. So I went out there and I said to the biggest one, “Hey raccoon, is that you that’s been knocking my garbage over and eating my trash?” And he looked back at me and said, “Yeah we’re responsible for that, and guess what? We ain’t stopping either!” So the next time I see a raccoon hanging outside my curb, don’t you think I have a right be to a little suspicious of what that little sumumma bitch is going to do?

So how is this different? Maybe if a majority of terrorist attacks weren’t committed by Muslims and if they didn’t continue to openly preach violence against us we wouldn’t have a reason to associate them with terrorism. But they are, so we will. Are all Muslims terrorists? Of course not. Have we earned the right to be suspicious? Of course we have. Some events change the world forever. September 11th was one of them, and there’s no going back to the old world.

I’m not saying we need to start judging each other on first glance, but we shouldn’t be afraid of stereotypes. They’ve been formed over years of distinct patterns, so they’re not going away, either. If we understand where we’re all coming from, it will give us greater insight into understanding each other…and a little understanding never hurt anybody.