Understanding Stereotypes

After watching "Black in America" on CNN, it got me thinking about ethnic stereotypes.

I think there's a gross misunderstanding about stereotypes that is made here. Many seem to think they they're just loosely correlated and granted some of them are, but there are stereotypes that are based on STATISTICAL FACT.

The one comment made by the black psychiatrist is what caught my attention where she was addressing how white communities treat the affluent black communities as invisible since they don't fit the "stereotype" of poverty. The stereotype does address the larger percentage of blacks who deal with poverty so the misunderstanding by the affluent white communities is understandable.

Don't get me wrong, using stereotypes to generalize and negatively label individuals is definitely wrong. But they are a creation of our own prejudices and our own observations, however unpleasant they may be.

I don't get offended when someone asks me how my driving is since I'm an Asian male. I am a member of a group of people in the American population that is STATISTICALLY more likely to get into car accidents. I can live with that. Is it fair that I have to pay more for car insurance as a result of this statistical tendency? Sure it's fair, I don't complain.

The whole point here is that it's not about fighting the stereotype by attacking the ones who believe them or use them as punchlines in jokes among friends. The whole point is to invalidate the stereotype by changing the statistical fact to contradict the stereotype. If you change the social statistics, then the stereotype loses its meaning. I'd like to think that my clean driving record has contributed towards curbing that trend in Asian drivers... But I doubt I've made much of a dent since my immediate family members have accidents on their records...

I occasionally tell my students what they are up against. That there's a 1 in 60,000,000 chance that you'll make it to the NBA. Or that among their community less than 10% of people who live in the area are college educated. So I ask these kids, "Are you a statistic?"

Rarely I get an actual answer to that question, I think students don't really comprehend what I ask of them. When I face students who actually reflect on the value of their education, that'll be the day that this question is answered with an enthusiastic "HELL NO!"