First of all as a rule I don’t accept much less agree with any stereotype about any group culture, subculture or any identity. There are exceptions to every rule, and most stereotypes have plenty of exceptions and holes in their logic. So this question and the affiliated stereotypes were not offensive to me (as I categorically reject them) so I say them all as a little funny, since as a rule I search for the humor in ridiculous things so I don’t give in to fear.
- Americans walk very fast/always in a hurry. Maybe in major metropolitan cities, and some suburbs but try that one out on the Midwest the so called “heart of America”.
- Americans are wasteful in utilizing space, say that to the OCD and well organized, the so called “neat freaks” and some todays most promising engineers.
- Americans always try to talk everything out. Say that to mute Americans, say that to the voiceless. Say that to the most personal introverts, good luck getting everything out of those people verbally.
- Americans are very straightforward in talking. Say that to Americans from several different parts of the world especially those from some Eastern and tribal communities.
- Americans are rich/drive big cars/think only about money. This is so laughable I don’t even know where to start. The homeless say what?
- Americans talk a lot but say little/have superficial relationships. Clearly these can easily happen anywhere, and let me tell you the Caribbean, and EL Salvador are two places tat loooove to talk about the little things, that have no lasting importance.
- Americans do not care about old people, while our social security system is worst than broken, this by no means exemplifies the entire populations view on the elderly. Who doesn’t love their grandparents, and as their parents get older, who doesn’t care for them?
- Americans are outgoing and friendly, again I point to the extroverts as well as the introverts among us all, both of which are EVERYWHERE!!
- Americans lack discipline. Who doesn’t?
- Americans are disrespectful of age and status. Again we do care for our elderly, maybe not to the same extent as some countries but there are plenty perhaps millions of exceptions to that rule. As for status, there are many countries that lack respect of status. Especially those living under government oppression.
- Americans are ignorant of other countries. This is another laughable assumption. While undoubtedly there are a number perhaps millions of willingly ignorant people in America, there are also I argue even more millions of Americans that travel, study, learn, understand, and celebrate other cultures. And a good many more who are unwillingly ignorant as not everyone knows about every other culture or country in the world.
- Americans are extravagant and wasteful. Many cultures and countries are materialistic, and obsessed with affluence. How do you explain slums in El Salvador without running water or enough food to eat proud to have cable or satellite TV?
- Americans are loud, rude, boastful and immature. This is an immature and insulting guess about the country with perhaps the greatest diversity of all identities and cultures in the world!
I will end with reaffirming my own belief in the necessity for increasing understanding and celebrating diversity as the best and most effective means to create connections between all cultures and identities and a good way to start is to stop as the brilliant saying goes “making asses out of you and me” (stop making any more assumptions).
Stereotypes are rude assumptions that are based on a handful, handpicked and not at all randomized examples, thus stereotypes are illogical, unscientific, and reasonably if not entirely baseless. So yeah, you are right, they have some truth to them they provide evidence to the extent of arrogance, the areas of ignorance and the source of fears of the person who subscribes to the stereotype!
This said, the Arasaratnam text makes some interesting points about stereotyping. Specifically the idea that stereotyping can help us predict and explain someone’s behaviors and categorize people to gain understanding of cultures and subcultures as separate groups is a useful idea. But in practice, at least to me stereotypes are more constrained and inflexible. In order for Stereotypes to be effective and useful they must be impermeable and unchanging, otherwise they are not my idea of stereotypes. If categories are ambiguous then what is the point in any separation at all? What is the purpose of division if all groups are flexible and living, evolving, adapting and ever growing? That’s my question. Why does there need to be separation? My answer, there is no point in separation, except to identify within a group. For the outsider to judge the insiders is basically divisive, creates a false distance and can be demeaning.
Its one thing to ask someone what their culture is, it is quite another to place someone in a category based on looks, behavior, language or other observable characteristics, again the outsider versus insider thing I just talked about. While we need to understand and place and define people just to make sense of the world this in no way means stereotyping as I understand it. We can take it one person at a time, and contextualize and identify an individual, but as I have said before each person really only exemplifies themselves. We can take on identities as insiders and take pride in that group but that is for the insider to do. Not for outsiders to judge.
As text Arasaratham text says talks about the three models of stereotype change, two of which I will discuss below. The bookkeeping model where a person encounters a number of instances which contradict an existing stereotype. The others conversion model is when a change is a dramatic onetime transformation which occurs as a result of an encounter with a significant stimulus which disconfirms an existing stereotype.
I loved when as a junior in high school I went to CAMP ANYTOWN which is now CAMP EVERY TOWN, it taught me and reinforced on me how lame judgments especially of cultures, identities or groups you are an outsider to. The conversion can when I torn down signs the staff had put up on the bathrooms for whites and colored people. I cried a lot at camp Anytown and it broke down some personal barriers.
Arasaratnam, L. A. (2011). Perception and communication in intercultural spaces. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
side note: I was talking to my dad about culture the other day and I gave my definition of culture. A self identified group of people who create their own limits of acceptable and appropriate behaviors, beliefs, words, and body language that all of which must fit group norms. My dad is Bill Durham an anthropologist and human biologist.
I argue that it is our insistence on the artificial significance of these differences that has created horrific and perhaps entirely unbridgeable rifts between people from different cultures. Things like slavery, genocide, massacre, torture, mass incarceration of non-white people, racism of all kinds, and many evils only exists because of our insistence on the one percent differences. To avoid provoking racists, we would do well to celebrate our differences only while acknowledging the similarities, lest we shall create and maintain reasons for those distances and related evils again.
Oh and if stereotypes are to be amiable and permeable, there is even less need for them at least to the non-ignorant.
Alas, you can justify anything these days, even in a world of far too much information.
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