Stereotypes

You probably have heard that Juan Williams was fired by NPR for sharing on the O’Reilly Factor that he became uneasy when he saw someone in full Muslim regalia on an airplane. He said that the 9-11 attacks changed him forever. NPR, being politically correct and publicly tone deaf, dismissed him for his “insensitive statements.” This episode caused me to think about something that we encounter everyday-stereotypes. Stereo means more than one, and type is a general classification, ergo a stereotype is a general classification of many. Although most elitists stereotype those of us from flyover country as mouth-breathing, incestuous rubes, the elite class usually condemns stereotyping.

It hasn’t always been considered a social error to view classes of individuals in a general sense. When our ancestors climbed down from trees and began living in caves, stereotypical assumptions could be the difference between life and death. A failure to assume the worst about an enemy or a bear could lead to your untimely demise. So, stereotyping has a legitimate historical basis for becoming part of our preservation repertoire. A behavior that in the Darwinian sense has contributed to the survival of our species cannot be, and should not be, casually discarded. While a stereotypical assumption about a particular individual may be faulty, it does not necessarily follow that the stereotype should be discarded.

Nearly all personal stereotypes begin with the particular, expands to the general, and returns to the particular. For example, if you are mugged by a smurf, you then internalize that all smurfs are muggers (even if you conscientiously know that’s not true). The next time that you encounter an individual smurf, you become wary and guarded. Bad smurf->all smurfs->the smurf.

My concern and reason for addressing this today is that attempts to extinguish stereotypical calculations are counterintuitive. It would be like trying to get us to stop breathing or eating. What can be done as we indoctrinate our youth is to teach them that a certain degree of wariness is warranted when one is in unfamiliar surroundings. Just as we teach them to look left, right, left when crossing the street, we can coach them to be cautiously reserved when in the midst of strangers who are different from them.

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