Stereotypes

This was a moment of thought I had last semester where I went into a typing frenzy. I thought I'd post it anyway:

One of the most dehumanizing things we do to each other in this world is stereotyping. We are almost taught to do this. In literature, a teacher may ask us to make assumptions about a certain character based on only a few facts. When we see someone is of a different race, culture, locality, or group we have an automatic tendency to assume that they have certain characteristics of that group. There are general characteristics, but to assume that everyone fully exhibits them is an error. When we do so, we take away the unique richness of that individual. Stereotyping can be more subtle than ‘the Asians are this way and the Germans are that way.” We all do it. It is in more common comments such as “girls are complicated and boys are dumb.” Dating rules and assumptions that go along with them are some nasty culprits. Or we can make a judgment on a person based off of someone else’s opinion. We should stop and think, is that person really an expert on this particular individual? Do they really know what makes them click, their worldviews, culture, needs, experiences, and values? No, they don’t. No two people have exactly the same make up. We are aware of this and see it in the known fact that siblings raised in the same family can be totally different. So why do we assume that people raised in the same religion, same profession, same gender group, or same anything are truly the same? Comments like “your just like this or just like that person” are red flags. We encourage stereotypes by communicating with less and less words using text, and facebook ‘like’ buttons that are convenient but lack depth. We do not know why a person likes something, only that they do. I’m not saying that these tools are all bad. I use them and am glad to have them, but it is important to be able to share in more detail what we are thinking.

I played a little game a few weeks ago where I decided to pay attention very carefully to what I said and catch any stereotypes, or general assumptions of a group of people, popping out of my mouth. Within five minutes I had caught myself at least twenty times in a conversation with a friend. We both laughed about it but it was a sad discovery. You may even find a few stereotypes in this post.

The flip side to judging other people is encouraging stereotypes upon ourselves by assuming that other people know who we are and what we are thinking. I am reminded of an experience I had with a girl I babysat. It had been about a year into living with this delightful Jewish family when I was tucking her in bed one night and as I did she said, “can I talk to you for a minute?” in a very serious tone. My response was a simple, “Sure.” She started, “You know, there’s a little I don’t know about my mom, but there is a whole lot I don’t know about you. Tell me some things about you and pick the best ones because you have a whole lot of options.” I then rattled off a few surface things such as “I like horses, singing and books.” and then said, “the two most important things to me are family and God.” She responded with, “ I never knew that!” This strangely surprised me. I didn’t talk with these children about religion except what was in the Old Testament out of respect for their parent’s wishes to avoid confusion. But I had assumed that she would just know from my actions what I believed or valued. This shows me that not only do we need to avoid stereotyping others, but we need to not assume that people know everything about us.

I was reading recently in the Book of Ether about the Brother of Jared praying that his family and friends language could be spared confounding so they could understand each other. What an important need that is! Of course, language is limited, but it is a great gift from God to allow us to have mutual understanding and learn from each other. Its learning how to express ourselves and understand others that is the tricky part. I remember a fireside in the MTC that I went to where Elder Scott spoke on the Gift of Tongues. “The spirit given gift of tongues is not just the increased ability to learn language, he said, it is the ability to have heart to heart communication” This doesn’t always happen. It takes practice to develop this gift, language ability, and slow deliberate judgment so we can truly know what is going on with another person. We have to express who we are, which can be tricky, but if we don’t we are allowing erroneous judgments towards us to be spread. Next time we are ready to make a hasty judgment towards someone, stop and ask the deepening whys, whats, and hows about them to uncover new insights we may have missed at first blush.