Racial Stereotypes: why it’s not your fault

 

Diverse Group of Kids

Racial Stereotypes: why it’s not your fault

            Stereotypes are a major part of everyday life. Most likely you think about more than one stereotype per day. One type of stereotype that is very prevalent in today’s day in age is racial stereotypes. The University of Notre Dame defines a racial stereotype as “automatic and exaggerated mental pictures that we hold about all members of a particular racial group.” These stereotypes can be very harmful to society and can affect how people think of others. In order to understand these stereotypes, you must find out what actually causes them.

            Stereotypes in general are developed by the factors around you and how you are raised. The people that affect how you develop these are most likely from parents and other people that you are close with. According to an article done by Nathalia Gjersoe “A proper awareness of social stereotypes can begin as early as around six years of age.” Although a proper awareness isn’t developed until around six years old babies automatically develop biases to certain races because of their familiarity with the people around them.

            Although racial stereotypes are very bad it may not actually be your fault that you develop them. As I previously explained babies develop these biases and stereotypes at a young age just because of familiarity and who they are exposed to. This isn’t their fault because it’s just how your brain works as a baby. Also, these racial stereotypes are affected by the people around you. There’s nothing you can do about how you were raised and the beliefs of the people around you every day. According to the article done by Nathalia Gjersoe, you should “talk very openly about race – and, importantly, racism – with children. One study has shown that this leads to significantly less prejudice.” This is a great way to raise a child to ignore racial stereotypes but if you weren’t raised like that then it is not your fault.

            I can see how someone would say that it’s still unacceptable to have these prejudices because you grow up and have your own thoughts and beliefs and can learn to change but these beliefs are instilled into your brain at such a young age that you subconsciously may be thinking about these racial stereotypes no matter what. 

            It may not be your fault that you develop racial stereotypes but the way you act with these thoughts is entirely your responsibility. Just because you think about racial stereotypes doesn’t mean you can say everything you think and talk to people negatively about these stereotypes. I have witnessed people using racial stereotypes negatively against other people firsthand and it is unacceptable. There are some common places that racial stereotypes are used negatively and one of them is in sports. One of my teammates was talked bad about because of racial stereotypes. This story is about one of my best friends from my team. His name is Jack. He is Asian and has medium-length black hair and a shorter build. During this game, Jack came flying onto the bench after an exhausting shift on the ice. You could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong. He looked concerned and uneasy. As soon as he sat down, he unbuckled his helmet and threw up in front of everyone’s skates who was near him. Once the refs found out that one of our players threw up, they decided to stop the game for everyone’s safety in case it was because of covid.  As our team passed through the lobby to our locker room, we saw all the Blazers players and we overheard their team talking. 

“Of course, the Asian kid threw up he definitely has covid.” One player said. 

A few others agreed and started laughing.

I can see how someone would say that it’s still unacceptable to have these prejudices because you grow up and have your own thoughts and beliefs and can learn to change but these beliefs are instilled into your brain at such a young age that you subconsciously may be thinking about these racial stereotypes no matter what. 

        Now, these thoughts were not put into the kid's head by himself. This is an example of how the things around you can affect what you think and what you say. Trump had been calling covid the Chinese virus around this time and that’s how these ideas entered the kid's head. Even though it might not have been his fault that he thought of that it needs to be known that it is not okay to say that to anyone. 

As you can see there is a lot of things that affect racial stereotypes. Most stereotypes are developed at a young age by the people raising you. In this case, though the racial stereotypes were developed because of the social media influence around us. Social media is a very powerful tool and if something bad is spread around it can affect how people think and their judgment. It needs to be clear to everyone that just because someone said it before you does not mean that it is necessarily okay to repeat. In order to prevent things like this from happening kids should be taught from a young age that just because someone else said something, it does not make it okay for them to repeat what was said. They need to learn right from wrong in society.