Stereotypes

Stereotypes are the conclusions we make about people that put them into boxes, attempting to reduce them from individuals into predictable one-dimensional beings. Unfortunately, this kind of unfair generalizations happen way too often in our world. All of us have heard certain characteristics about a group of people, usually in the form of "All [enter group here] are dirty," or "[] are all smart." This removes any individuality from the members of the group and paves the way for prejudice. Since the people in group are expected to act a certain way, then other people may mistakenly act in a different way with a person because of their appearance or their relation to a group of people. Without even knowing the person, you already make judgements about the type of person they are.

It is my guess that the majority of all people have been the victim of stereotyping. For example, because of my Mexican heritage, some people joke that all I eat is beans and tortillas, and that I am destined for work as manual labor, join a gang, or get another Latina girl pregnant. This is not exclusive to only minorities though. Because of my light skin and blonde hair, some people mistake me for White. They mention that I must not know how to play basketball, dance, or that I live in a middle to upper class suburbia. No matter the group, some people will attempt to generalize characteristics for all members of the group. These kind of characteristics limit what a person can be, because they are efforts to box people into easily describable categories.