Stereotypes and Judging Others

Recently, we had a speaker named Mykee Fowlin come to our school to talk about diversity and the importance of accepting others. He spoke about how little changes in attitude can make huge impacts on others and sometimes even change lives. The whole auditorium was moved by his words; after he was done, many had tears in their eyes.

As my friends and I were discussing the speaker, one of them questioned the actual impact of his speech. She pointed out that although he had a beautiful message to tell, most people would only truly take it to heart for one day and forget his words immediately after. And, to some extent, I completely agree.

In the book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell explores the human mind’s ability to process images and spit out conclusions within a split-second – essentially, to judge a book by its cover. Of course, stereotypes go hand in hand with these types of judgments; one particularly compelling example used in the book is a study on racism conducted by Harvard using an Implicit Association Test (IAT). This test studies the associations that a subject’s brain makes between positively or negatively connoted words and photographs of black or white people. 

I consider myself a very open-minded person -- yet as I took this test a couple years ago, I found myself deliberately slowing down my reaction times so that I could ensure a test result that put me in a good light. The conscious part of my brain desperately hoped that my subconscious didn’t have any traces of racism in it.

Even the best of people can be quick to judge others. Sherman Alexie makes this evident through his characters like the 7-11 worker, someone who is generally innocent but suffers from misconceptions about Native Americans. Stereotyping is something that’s built into us, and it's harder to let go of than it may seem. I know that the problems associated with stereotypes are not going to disappear in one day. They are not, by any means, ever going to disappear – where people are different, there will always be marginalization. In the end, Dr. Fowlin's speech only reminded people of what they already know about how to treat others, but usually choose to ignore. However, people DO need to be constantly reminded that in order for them to consciously pursue becoming a better person. Ultimately, although the path to a more tolerant population is an individual journey, this journey is definitely influenced by literature, pop culture, and whatever else is heard or said in daily life. Simply being exposed to voices that encourage tolerance is, in itself, a positive, if small impact in the larger battle against marginalization. 

(In case you're interested, you can take the IAT here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/)