What is wrong with Stereotyping?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary stereotyping is defined as, “an often unfair and untrue belief that many people have about all people or things with a particular characteristic” (Cite). Meaning that stereotyping is a conditioned method of thinking based on the looks, religion or way of life of another person or group. This sounds like a bad and close minded act, but is it? Stereotyping can be used, in certain situations, as a commendable and useful tool.

Everyone stereotypes. Even if we hate to own up to it, we all do. It is a natural way of navigating our day-to-day lives. False or true, we all know them. White men can’t jump. African Americans are on welfare. Asian people are smarter than everyone else. Jewish people are cheap. We teach our children to stereotype at a young age. We tell them to look for someone in uniform if they are lost. We tell them not to talk to the tattooed stranger at Wal-Mart. I, myself, have been stereotyped many times and have suffered no ill will because of it. As a young middleclass white woman I may be stereotyped as someone that shows up fifteen minutes late to everything, wearing ugg boots and holding a cup of Starbucks. This is simply not true. I can make my own coffee and have never liked ugg boots. On the other side of that coin, as a young middleclass white woman have never had to change my own flat tire. Men stereotype me as the helpless female and someone always stops to help me. This is another false stereotype; I took auto shop in high school.

On a serious note, some people would say that when stereotyping gets pulled into authority, police, and government we start to see many problems. Historically, as a government and other authority start to use stereotypes as a justific...

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...ht. She sees a group of African-American men that look somewhat threatening. She goes out of her way to walk around them, instead of walking past. Certainty this woman thought of a gang when she saw them. She decides not to go down their path. This snap judgment decision may have saved her life. It surely saved her from possibility of being robbed, injured or harassed by those men.

Is stereotyping wrong or are the people saying that it is wrong just living with a dirty conscious? The practicality of stereotyping far outweighs the negative side. Everyone has been stereotyped and everyone will be stereotyped. The sooner we accept stereotyping as a way of assessment and not as a stone template the better off the world will be. I firmly believe that anyone that says stereotyping is completely wrong is just living with their head in the sand and away from common sense.