Erin Goldberg, Post 3
After reading Marger Chapter 3, I began to wonder if human beings can learn to be immune to the trap of stereotyping. My original thought was "No, as humans we feel the need to categorize and label everything." So having a picture in our mind that all Jews are stingy or all Asians are good at math, helps to make less work for us upon meeting new people. It also puts general labels on everyone we meet, so that even when we are introduced to a stranger, we assume there are already things we know about them based on their race or ethnicity. However, I wonder what it would take for all the stereotypes to be eliminated or even switched. What if we associated African Americans as stingy or Italians as being good at math? What have these ethnic and racial groups done to deserve their specific label and can they be changed? My opinion is, yes they can be changed, but no stereotypes can never be completely eliminated. To be changed, it would simply take a shift in social thought and ethnic action. But elimination of stereotyping, I believe, unfortunately is not possible. As a society, we like our labels, mental pictures, and categories far too much.
I agree, I don't think we'll ever be able to get rid of stereotypes. However, I feel the real problem is people believing in the stereotype. We make stereotypes based on everything from race and ethnicity to clothes and astrology signs. There are tons of stereotypes out there. Some we've heard of and some we haven't. The ones we haven't heard or don't care about don't cloud our judgement. The ones we do believe inplay apart in the way we see each other.
ReplyDelete