Blog #3

This week in class we learned about an array of things such as social construction of reality, research methods, in-groups and out-groups, but what struck me the most was stereotypes and categories. In Charon’s “Should we generalize?” He speaks of why humanity generalizes people and things, its because its natural to us. He explains how it’s an instinct that we’ve been all taught to have and that it’s okay, as long as we go about it in the right way. In specific, he address that its acceptable if we generalize and categorize correctly, not stereotyping. The difference is the accuracy of what we are saying. In class, Sal says that many rich people tend to be republican which is a generalization, but it turns into a stereotype if he were to say all republican are rich. This is huge aspect of my life because I am an Asian, 16-year-old girl who lives in the northwestern suburbs. There are many stereotypes that I must be smart, rich, selfish, etc. When in fact, these are all sweeping stereotypes that I HATE to be called. I may be educated or have an upper hand by going to a phenomenal high school, but there is so much inaccuracy with what most people tend to believe. Also, the “angry eye” video that we watched in class, was impactful, because it showed the how everyone stereotypes, even the people being stereotyped and that it has very negative impacts on all kinds of people, whether they are confident or not. The message was, that its just a very unmoral way to group people, whom you don’t truly know.