No one can make you feel inferior without your consent (Eleanor Roosevelt)
I wished the title of this piece to have been the title of a movie script, which you have to admit, it would have resulted in an awe-inspiring, if not bizarre, film. But this is not it. All I want is to bore you by talking about stereotypes.
An American friend, politically correct as we know them, tried to be very gentle in relation with me, until I urged him to speak of the unspoken. To clear any diplomatic tension that might stand in the way of what it seems to be an open and heartfelt friendship, I told him what we, the Europeans, think of them, the Americans: “You guys are fat, stupid, imaginary world’s policeman, bullies, superficial, rednecks, and jerry springers”. And, I added quickly, to avoid an embarrassing moment and to merely spell out his own thoughts about it: “This makes us, the Eastern Europeans: poor, communists, sluts, thieves, gypsies, and second hand citizens”.
My friend claims that although we cannot escape stereotypes we can however keep them in check. With all due respect, I find that hard to believe.
Come to think of it, stereotypes, like legends, are founded on a core of truth. Generalizing them is painful, but nevertheless stereotypes are true. Books define them as oversimplifications of a set of attributes a group of individuals have, especially underlying the negative ones. However, it doesn’t mean they are not based on true attributes. OK, the fact that we nonchalantly dismiss so many people and stereotype Americans as fat, doesn’t mean they are not fat. In this particular case, thou, the minority of 40% that are within weight limits might feel offended, but yes, Americans, most of them, are fat.
Stereotypes are usually formed on “the basis of prejudice and are employed to explain real or imaginary differences due to race, gender, religion, age, ethnicity, socio-economic class, disability, and occupation, among the limitless groups one may be identified with”.
Hear, hear! Imaginary or REAL! According to the very same stereotype, Eastern European women are sluts. A slut, apart from being considered a dirty woman, is someone who engages in sexual activity with a large number of persons. What is a large number of persons? If people get married, and cheating is not being taken into consideration, anything above number 1, 2 partners labels you as a slut. It all breaks down to details. But we are talking numbers, facts, and statistics. Since, however, stereotypes come to define a majority, the error that one can make when labeling a member of another society is minimal within the range or error margins.
The Middle Easterners are usually stereotyped as terrorists. A handful of inhabitants from the Middle East have chosen to engage in terrorist acts, considered by them a “holy war” and by the rest of us, terrorism. There is nothing holy about murder. Not even suicide. Coincidence makes it that some of those people, if not all, were also Muslims. The resulted stereotype was this: all Muslims are terrorists. Moreover, it avalanched into “all Middle Easterners are terrorists”. I am confident that curiosity is defined by proximity and most people are not aware or informed of the surroundings of the world we live in. However, Middle East is a region that spreads from southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa and it is composed of more or less 18 countries. Cyprus, a Greek Orthodox Christian country, and Israel, a Judaic State, are among those 18 countries. Here is the correction: not all Muslims are terrorists. Not all Middle Easterners are Muslims. Not all Middle Easterners are terrorists.
Unfortunately, stereotypes don’t seem to affect only the minorities. If someone, who is still not politically and correctly aligned with the new E.U. norms and regulations, addresses Romanians as gypsies, the latter will feel offended. Being identified with this particular ethnic minority, came in time to mean an insult. The gypsies themselves have their roots somewhere in India. They are nomad people who are generously spread all over the world, but mostly in Eastern Europe. Some of the members of this minority steal, kill, rape and pillage. So do the members of a Danish or Swiss society, of course, with less frequency, but when that happens, it must have been an “immigrant”. Hence, the entire minority of gypsies is labeled consequently. Moreover, a country that hosts a large number of this particular minority came to being labeled as such. The problem with stereotypes is that sometimes creates double standards. The inference is this: when applied to a minority based on what a majority is, might result in a truism, when applied from a minority towards a majority tends to be false. Ayn Rand, whom I particularly don’t like but I happen to agree with at times, once said “whenever you think you are facing contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong”.
I can't believe I am quoting Wikipedia, but here it goes: “sociologists believe that labeling is not only necessary but is inescapable. Even though stereotyping is inaccurate, it is efficient. Categorization is an essential human capability because it enables us to simplify, predict, and organize our world. Once one has sorted and organized everyone into tidy categories, there is every incentive to avoid processing new or unexpected information about each individual. Assigning general group characteristics to members of that group saves time and satisfies the need to predict the social world.”
So all we have to do is set our stereotypes straight to save everyone’s time.
On the other hand, psychologists have another approach when they enlighten us about stereotypes. They claim that “people tend to stereotype because of the need to feel good about oneself. Stereotypes protect one from anxiety and enhance self-esteem. By designating one’s own group as the standard or normal group and assigning others to groups considered inferior or abnormal, it provides one with a sense of worth”. Aw...:-)
So basically, what I did all along when I forwarded my “let’s speak about the unspoken” speech was to counter react a possible superior stand that my American friend might have had in relation to me. I boosted my self confidence by reducing an entire nation to a handful of fat, stupid and bullies, while however gave him the false opportunity to reciprocate, but depriving him of the upper hand he might have had if he had answered equally. How did I do? :-)
History taught us that either absorbed in childhood or at a later stage in life, once it is learnt a stereotype becomes self perpetuating. It dejectedly becomes an immune disease of our mental patterns.
David Cronenberg once said that “all stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they're stereotypes because they're true”. Which only enhances the proverb which advises us “not to tell the truth to your friend because he already knows it, and don't bother telling the truth to your enemy because he won't believe you”. Sad but true. (2009)
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