Tea W/ C: Stereotyping
From the moment you’ve first interacted with someone, you’re probably given them some sort of stereotype… Maybe you’ve got the impression that someone is a jock or a nerd, which are typical high school stereotypes. However, stereotypes go beyond high school.
As you get older, this is something that goes from an innocent joke to a racial slur. For example, when boys and girls call “cooties!” in the third grade. As you get older a girl having “cooties” can turn into guys calling them derogatory and degrading names.
There are stereotypes on things from religion and race to the way you dress and how you act. How is it fair to place judgment on a group of people’s beliefs or something they strictly can’t help? It’s not, but as a society we allow things like stereotyping. The Catholic Church is under fire for public stereotyping against their religious leaders such as priests and bishops. The entire religion is being slammed because of sexual abuse scandals that became public, but is it fair that the religion itself has been given a bad reputation.
We do this with political leaders as well. It’s no secret that when someone runs for a political office, they have to be prepared for everything to go public. Just because of something that may or may not have happened years ago, a person can be defined in one moment.
People can turn their lives around. Despite what other narrow minded people think, people can change. A person who was once convicted of something like drug use can go to rehab and completely change, but once they have to label of a drug addict that is not going to change and that’s how people are always going to see them.
From jocks, to gamers, to blondes, to your ethnicity, to your social status, we are all judged based on first impressions and essentially who we are. Stereotyping leads to people feeling as though they can’t be themselves.
Stereotyping and first impressions can prove to be wrong. Stereotyping is not okay. There is always more to someone than a first impression.
