Challenging Societies Stereotypes

Stereotypes bug me. As a society we tend to be lazy when it comes to understanding people as individuals. We put labels on people based on age, generation, race, sex, class, or political stance. Sure it is easier to think in generalizations, but do we even know where these generalizations come from?

Simple, they are taught to us. They are handed down, spoken from person-to-person. Often as whispers, but too often they are shouts in propaganda from media disguised as news or from anonymous social media posts. Stereotypes are not naturally occurring, they are a man-made problem we need to teach our children about.

We need to come up with new stereotypes. Rather than the way society causes us to often group people, lets come up with our own new stereotypes. Lets start labeling people as hard working, creative, problem solvers or free thinkers. I guarantee that you can find people that are hard workers regardless of their age, race, or gender. You can find examples of every combination. I guarantee you can find people that are the extreme opposite of those hard workers that are the same age, race and gender.

The standard stereotypes we think of are broken. They are easily proven invalid by simply getting to know people. Keep working to change societies view of stereotypes, starting with your own generalized beliefs.

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