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Beneath the Surface of Their Skin

The Dangers of Stereotyping

By Davie TrucePublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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The only race that people are allowed to make fun of is their own. That's one of the unwritten rules that has been established within recent years. The only exception to that rule was when it happens amongst friends and if they are okay with it. However, stereotypes are a completely different matter. Stereotypes are not something that should be used for humor, especially when the costs of stereotyping far exceed the rewards, if there are any at all. The reason why I don't agree that stereotypes bring people together is that they set high standards and expectations, they tend to apply to only a few percents of an entire race's population, and they are often used as a shortcut when it comes to figuring out what other people are like.

To begin with, stereotypes set certain high standards and expectations for people that only some of them can reach. The best example of that is the stereotype that Asians are experts at math or that they are the smartest people in the world. This may seem like a nice thing to say, but it only puts a burden on the Asian population and makes it so that they have to be really smart or they are simply not Asian enough. Olivia Lai, during her TEDx talk, "Asian Doesn't Start with A+," had said, "Living up to the highest standards that come with being Asian, it is often overwhelmingly stressful. And students suffer psychological, emotional, and even academic costs. We learn to correlate our self-worth with quantitative measurements." The "Model Minority" stereotype puts a lot of pressure on Asian-Americans and is the main reason that their rate of suicide is extremely high and only getting higher as each year passes. This stereotype puts the Asian-American population at risk and needs to be addressed. Sometimes, when people try to address it, they do so in a joking manner in order to keep the mood light, but the matter itself should be taken seriously.

Secondly, most stereotypes tend to only apply to a few percents of the entire race's population. A good example of this would be the stereotype that Black people are all thieves or that they are all bad in some way. It's obvious why this negative stereotype benefits no one. It places the Black community in a box that is hard to get out of and it instills an unnecessary fear in other races when it comes to Black people. In The Guardian, Leigh Donaldson had mentioned, "Not only does the media’s reluctance to provide more balanced perspectives of our African-American male population worsen cultural division among all people, but it also enables judges to hand out harsher sentences, companies to deny jobs, banks to decline loans and the police to shoot indiscriminately. The mass media is certainly aware of its vast power to shape popular ideas, opinions, and attitudes. They should become equally cognizant of their role as a mechanism of social change for the better of all." Stereotyping can be very damaging to many communities in many cultures. People on the outside looking in wouldn't realize this, but amongst minorities, stereotyping has led to people being racist against those who are of the same race simply because of the way they act. Whether people act the exact opposite of a stereotype or exactly like it, it draws attention. The reason why so many minorities find themselves repeating the cycle of falling into the stereotypes forced on them is because of the internal belief that they are not good for anything else.

Finally, stereotypes are simply a shortcut for people who are not so keen on actually getting to know a person of a certain race. Stereotypes oversimplify things about people and justify the way things are. A good example of this would be the stereotype that all White people are racist. Common sense says that this is not true for a majority of White people, but thanks to America's dark past and shaky present, the stereotype still sticks. This may be one of the reasons why minorities tend to stick with their own race most of the time. The people who use stereotypes as a way of figuring out what other people are like have probably never even engaged in a conversation with those in that certain race.

To conclude, using stereotypes for humor may seem harmless to some people, but it hits right at home for others. The world should be focused on destroying these stereotypes and breaking out of the box that they've been placed in, not just standing around and making fun of it because nothing will come out of that. In order to bring the world together, people must break through the boundaries and limits that stereotypes have placed the people of the world.

humanity
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About the Creator

Davie Truce

A college student that loves to read and write.

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