Ongoing Convo: Understanding Stereotypes
8th Grade students chime in on their thoughts…
Consider the quote, “People are most afraid of what they don’t understand. And when we don’t understand, we turn to our assumptions.”
How does this statement coincide with social health and intolerance: stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination?
What example from history or current events does it make you think of?
Taylor A.
December, 2019
This is a powerful statement because people are scared they might fail when they don’t understand something, and if we fail at understanding, we then jump to conclusions. These conclusions are mostly incorrect about other people, but we still might hold them to be true, which obviously isn’t fair.
This all relates to social intolerance because if we assume that everyone is like “this” or “that” or put everyone into one group, and not everyone is like that, that assumption has become a stereotype. This also potentially leads to discrimination because we are classifying people— we connect people of a certain race with certain behaviors that we assume they would say or believe.
In places such as Chicago, some people don’t want to go to different parts of the city because they believe that “bad” people may be there or that it would be a, quote, “bad” part of the city.
Even our American President has made a terribly false quote about Mexican immigrants and what he believes they are coming to America to do. He stated, “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.” So what Trump is doing right here is generalizing a large group of people and making general assumptions about them. This is prejudice and can lead to discrimination, which is unfortunately still alive in the 21st century.
Ryan M.
December, 2019
This statement relates to social health topics of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination because usually these assumptions we make lead into being prejudice. The assumptions we make are sometimes based on different concepts of stereotypes which could lead to discrimination.
An example from history would be World War II. The people of Germany didn’t really understand what was going on— they just went with assumptions as developed by Hitler and the Nazi party. Obviously, not all Jewish people are leeches of society. Hitler and other leaders harshly discriminated against Jews to portray them in this light with propaganda posters and messages on how they looked, statements against their religion, and traditions Jews held. The Nazis noticed the populations of Jews were multiplying and feared loss of control so they worked to develop slander about Jews to fit them in one category to scare the German public— and attempt to do so for Europe and the rest of the world as well.
Monish M.
October, 2019
The quote accurately conveys what we as humans do. When we as people are socially confused, we jump to a conclusion without thinking of the effect of what we think and say.
This coincides with social health topics of stereotypes and discrimination because it describes that even if we don’t know something about someone, we immediately generalize it. We as humans jump fast to generalizing people by age, gender, ethnicity, and the effect of their hobbies on their life.
This can best be thought of when considering that some people assume all African Americans love basketball, all Asian Americans are academically superior, most teenagers have bad habits, or most older people hate pop culture.
However, this is proof that the person thinking or saying these stereotypes has a lack of understanding. They are jumping to a thought. These are only generalizations about specific groups of people without applying the facts.
The original statement is to convey that we as humans feel the need to jump to conclusions without truly understanding others, causing us, when all else fails, to turn to our assumptions.
Manaswini M.
May, 2019
This statement summarizes people in one sentence. When someone first sees a person, they do not know anything about them. They do not know their name, what their life is like, or anything about their personality or past. The only things they can assume must be based off of stereotypes. People are afraid of the unknown, and, thus, constantly seek answers.
In class, we discussed the differences between a stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination. All three of these things are connected and they all stem from the statement above. When people turn to their assumptions, they judge based on stereotypes. This leads to people developing prejudices, which may eventually turn into discrimination.
In the past, specifically in America, hate against blacks existed in stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. People judged based on their assumptions, which were just based on stereotypes. This led to widespread prejudice, which led to accepted discrimination.
Throughout history and sometimes even now, women are seen as weaker than men. But there have been so many women in history who changed the world. For example, Hatshepsut was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh. But she was unlike any other. She is considered to be one of Egypt’s greatest rulers. She overcame the common stereotype from history that states that women are inferior to men.
Katelyn C.
May, 2019
The statement above rings true because when people are afraid or don’t understand something they immediately look for stereotypes, which leads to them developing a prejudice.
When multiple people have the same prejudice, the public acts on it and starts to discriminate against a certain group of people. An example of this from history would be after the terrorist attacks that happened on September 11, 2001. Americans were terrified, so they immediately assumed that all people of Islamic background were terrorists and that none of them were good people.
Mia H.
October, 2018
When people walk down the street, it’s very possible that they could develop a prejudice on someone based on what they see. If a plus-sized woman walks past another person, the other person may think that she doesn’t work out or that she is weak, because to some people, their mindset is that when people work out, they’re strong and thin.
Every person has jumped to a conclusion about a person whether it’s their age, where they’re from, what they do with their life possibly, and many other things.
If a person is wearing a cross, most people would assume that the person wearing that is a Christian.
For my life, when I was really young, I used to think that most boys had their favorite color as blue. I met a friend whose favorite color was green, and I wondered why. As I grew older I understood that was a huge stereotype— I didn’t understand, so I turned to assumptions based on these stereotypes.
Luke P.
October, 2018
This statement is very true because we don't know everything about everything, and if people don't know something they like to be perceived as if they know what's going on— even if that means lying to themselves and telling themselves that they know details that they really don't.
The most common way people do this is by using prejudice. We perceive that most or all people in a group act a certain way. This reminds me of Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem. People don't understand what he was kneeling for so they turned on him and jumped to conclusions that he was disrespecting the military and the flag.
Meghan T.
February, 2018
This is a powerful statement because it explains why kids bully or adults make fun— they feel uncomfortable or scared of the situation they are in.
This is associated with stereotypes and prejudice because if someone doesn't understand a religion or race, they try to make themselves feel less awkward and uncomfortable by bullying or by having a prejudice.
I know that a lot of kids in middle school are not very comfortable around kids with special needs and don’t understand why they do some of the things that they do. Some make jokes about them and try to avoid those students to make themselves feel better.
Alex S.
February, 2018
This statements coincides with social health notions of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. While the statement itself is generalizing about everyone, and is a stereotype in itself, it is fairly true that we turn to assumptions whenever we don’t understand something.
This is a little unfair to the people that are aware of their own personal bias, but throughout history, we’ve acted on that bias. For example, take our American history with slavery. In slavery, African Americans were discriminated against, made to work without any pay, and couldn’t go anywhere on their own. They were sold, and even if they were free, some still got put back into slavery. These citizens were generalized, and worse, discriminated against as slaves, and given an unfair treatment for years and years.
Fiona P.
February, 2018
When people want to do new things, fear overwhelms them based off of things they have heard or read.
We automatically look at the bad or scary parts of things and make assumptions that the bad things will happen to them. This coincides with social health because people in America may hear the President/ Government say something bad about a certain race/group and make an assumption about them.
People could watch a movie, read the title of an article, or even learn in history about horrible events, but it is socially harmful to base a stereotype off the first thing we hear about a group of others.
Every race, ethnic group, and country has made mistakes in the past, but we cannot make opinions based off of mistakes.