Impact of Stereotypes: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

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Stereotypes are used all of the time, and have become a normal thing that you may not even realize you do. We may stereotype people based on their looks, what sports they play, or even what race they are. Gene Luen Yang rights a graphic novel called “American Born Chinese”, in her novel she demonstrates how a Chinese boy is affected by these stereotypes. In an article called “The Pain of Positive Stereotypes”, the author Art Markman writes about how even the good stereotypes can harm someone. Lastly, Sadiaa Haque a blog writer, writes about her experience of being stereotyped and how stereotypes are ok, in one of her writings called “Cultural Stereotypes are OK”. Both Yang and Markman convey that stereotypes are offensive, and depersonalizing, …show more content…

Haque is from Bangladesh and gives an example of a stereotype of where she had came from,”isn’t Bangladesh all muslim (scary-conservative) / all Hindu (very Eat, Pray, Love)?”(Haque). This is one of the stereotypes of India and she explains that as long as you're not a South asian that it is to think that the stereotypes are true, but if you're South Asian and believe in the same stereotypes that you should know better then that. “To all non-South Asians: It’s perfectly reasonable if you ever thought any of the stereotypes above were true (some of them partially are, anyway). However, if you’re South-Asian and believe in the same stereotypes, you should probably know better,”(Haque). As you could see, Haque was fine with those stereotypes, because people who didn’t live there don't know much about the country, so they had resorted to stereotypes because it’s the only thing they know. Haque had also said that,”I want to reassure you that stereotypes are OK, as long as you’re not willfully ignorant or offensive,”(Haque). Overall, Haque believes that stereotypes are okay, and not such a bad thing to use unless you're being ignorant to one’s culture or blatantly

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