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.
I liked what you said about stereotypes, people don't always know the full extent of things
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about stereotypes and how they can have a negative effect on you and I can understand how annoying that could be to you.
ReplyDeleteI like your explaanation of Charon's categories, but for the Angry Eye video, it is more about ingroups vs. outgroups. That was a different lesson, although, it is true that we tend to stereotype and judge outgroups.
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