Stereotyping

Stereotyping is a part of American culture. It is a common way of easily classifying people by their appearance, accent, or personality. Stereotypes are not always negative but they tend to be that way because they are usually a judgement of a person. As a child I was often stereotyped as the quiet, smart girl because I was placed in advanced classes and hardly ever spoke up in class. I had lots of friends that I would talk to after school or during lunch but in class I was too timid to say anything. Because of the stereotype, I became more and more shy in class and doubted myself even when I knew the answer to a question the teacher had asked. Instead of trying to break out of the stereotype that people had placed me into, I merely hid behind it. Today it is like a habit to not speak up in class, because I have never gained enough confidence when it comes to talking in front of other students. 

In high school I was stereotyped as a rich, smart, white girl because I went to a low-income predominately black school. There were 30 white people in my senior class out of 300, so most of the black students thought that we were all rich and snobby. However, I am neither of the two.  It was a stereotype that we were placed into and even though it was unfair it was no where near as insulting as the stereotype that the community placed on the predominate race at my school. Recently, in my home town, there has been discussion of changing the lines of where children go to school so that the high schools will be evenly distributed. The other two high schools are over-populated and crowded, while the school I went to is failing because of bad grades and a high drop-out rate. A discussion board was placed on the county website for people to write their opinion about the redistricting. The comments are astounding and insulting. Many people said that they are scared for their children to go to my high school because they are scared they will be beaten up by gangs or killed. They stated that they had rather their child drop out and get their G.E.D. than go to my school. Many parents said that they moved twenty miles from the city so that their child would not have to go to my school and the thought of them having to go anyway infuriated them. The horrible stereotype placed on the students at my high school was that they were  gangsters who shot people everyday and would hurt anybody they came across. This was not true and most of the people I met in high school were very nice people. It was sickening how many parents made them sound like horrible mobsters. Stereotyping can be a terrible thing because not only can it cause people to create an image of themselves that they carry for a long time but it can also tear a community apart.