Essay On Stereotypes

In all of my life, I been stereotyped or I have stereotyped someone or something we use it almost every day. First of all, what is stereotype and second why do we use it? According to Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald who are Professors of psychology and authors of “On Stereotypes” claim that stereotypes is a form of categorizing, “Once formed, categories are the basis for normal prejudgment. We cannot possibly avoid this process. Orderly living depends on it” (613). In other words, stereotyping is our survival kit without it we would not be able to be civilize or trust each other, and why we use it because like I said is way to survive and besides is how our mind works we categorize or stereotype people and things. Indeed, I agree with Banaji and Greenwald it is a form of a category because I also been stereotype either …show more content…
In one occasion, towards the end of my junior year in high school there was a particular person who confess to me stating that he thought I was malicious, noisy big mouth, and poor due of my race and appearance. He felt that he should apologies for thinking that way of me. I of course, didn’t feel offended but I was curious why he thought that way of me so ask him why. His response was simple because you are Mexican I remember just thinking ‘that’s it’. He later on explain to me that he had bad experience prior and he had the need to apologies for thinking that I was malicious and a big mouth. Then he explain why he thought I was poor it was because of the media he saw throughout his life watching television they occasionally make us the servants of wealthy people. For instance, in all the shows I have watch the Hispanic male is the gardener and the female is the maid. I began to realize that stereotyping people isn’t necessary bad thing because we do it every day, but it can lead to a huge problematic issue if taken out of hand; like the Iranians we assume that they are all terrorist, but in reality there just has normal just