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“Don’t Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgments” Essay Robert L. Heilbroner, in his essay “Don’t Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgments,” explains that assumptions based on stereotypes are not always accurate. He goes on to say that stereotypes are “a kind of gossip” (348) which help us make sense of our abstract world. He states examples of how names, nationalities, places and accessories cloud our judgment, explaining that it saves us the trouble of finding out what people and the world are really like. The problem occurs when we take these assumptions and use them as our own thoughts or as fact. Heilbroner’s essay made me realize all the drawbacks that come with stereotyping people, and how deep-rooted stereotypes are in everyone’s mind. Even more frightful is how many I used, without even realizing it. The only way to stop stereotyping is to stop intolerance, because stereotypes are oversimplified images, conceptions, or opinions that are clearly prejudice. Our upbringing affects the way we view our world and all the components in it. “We begin to type-cast in our early years” and our families influence the way we “grow up with standardized pictures forming inside us” (Heilbroner 348). When our families teach us by example, we learn to accept their stereotypes, and be hateful or tolerant, prejudice or accepting. If we have been raised to see certain people as “bad guys,” we tend to stereotype all similar people that same. The danger lies in letting stereotypes control your actions and beliefs, whether taught or self learned. Media plays a crucial role in this problem. With all the misconceptions they relay, it forces the public to accept it as fact. “Stereotypes are perpetuated by the advertisements we read, the movies we see, the books we read” (Heilbroner 348). While in a gas station late at night, if two young white males walked in, you may not think twice about them. Replace those white males with black males and abruptly your heart starts racing, you try not to make eye contact and suddenly you become frightfully aware of your surroundings. The only thing going through your mind is all those broadcasts on the news about black males robbing convenient stores. Though you don’t realize it at the time, the media has affected the way you look at other races. Stereotypes only harm us and our minds. “The danger of stereotypes lies not in their existence, but in the fact that they become for all people some of the time, and for some of the people all the time, substitutes for observation” (Heilbroner 349). By prejudging the world, we close our eyes to truth, and accept what we have been told. We lose our self in all the fiction, and chance that we will not discover all that life has to offer. By doing this we have become a stereotype ourselves. “The true process of change is a slow one that adds bits and pieces of reality to the pictures in our heads, until gradually they take on some of the blurriness of life itself” (Heilbroner 350). Though we have been forced as a society to deal with prejudice and all of its grotesque realities, we forget that stereotyping has the same harmful effects. They are both one in the same. References: Wyrick, Jean. Steps to
Writing Well. Ninth. |