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Racial Stereotypes.
Racial Stereotypes.
As much as we try to deny it, racial stereotypes still prevails in our society as a major flaw. From
our everyday life to rare events, we experience racial stereotypes at an uncontrollable pace.
Racism is not only restricted to but it is also found in other countries on different basis. In
Pakistan, we observe the practice of racism based on religious belief that may include Shia Sunni
conflicts, Ahmedi community issues, minority issues and sectarianism. In the United States of
America, racism is practiced on the base of race. For example, the murder of George Floyd (a
black man) by a white cop. In France, racism is practiced on the basis of religion. For example,
the assassination of women in Hijab and in India, racism prevails on the basis on ideology as the
class system prevails in India. If we talk about Pakistan, the stereotypes are based mostly on
either the province the person is from or the language that they speak for example a person
coming from a Sindhi background enters Punjab, people will call them out with terms such as
Muhajir, Bhaiyay, etc to mock them. Similarly, if a person living in the Capital goes to
Baluchistan or the Northern areas, people would start calling them, Cakes, Burgers, Mama’s boy,
etc. People speaking Punjabi make fun of Pushto, people speaking Balochi or Saraiki would
mock people speaking Sindhi and vice versa. This creates chaos in the society that is sometimes
very difficult to control and it sometimes even gets violent such as when religious sects start riots
against each other and people who have no conflict with them whatsoever get killed or beaten
stereotypes in Pakistan and which measures can be taken to avoid the prevailing racial
stereotypes. We will emphasize on the existence of racial stereotypes in different forms and on
The author – Jawad explains his experience as an Ahmedi in the Pakistani society in this article
and throws light on an incident which took place in his life and still serves as a nightmare for
him. Jawad’s father is known as Sheikh in the society and his father served as a judge in the past
too. Unfortunately, Sheikh lost his life during an attack on the Ahmedi community leaving
behind a grieving family. But, it does not end here as Sheikh was continually receiving threats
from unknown people who threatened Sheikh that they would kill the Ahmedi’s on his son’s
wedding and as a result, they had to employ high security on the wedding to avoid any
disturbance. Not only that, but every member of the Ahmadi community has to face some kind of
discrimination in the society as Jawad explains how the shopkeepers refused to sell his wife a
tooth brush. This practice is quite common in our society as people refuse to sell or buy stuff
from the people belonging to the Ahmedi community. It would be safe to say that the blasphemy
law plays a major role in molding the mindset of people as the law is being misused to a great
extent in the society. Majority of the people are against the Ahmadi community and are raising
their children in a manner that encourages the children to hate the entire community too. Such
attitude cam restrict the diversity in country and lead to major setbacks like mass attacks and
terrorism. The Ahmedi community is an oppressed community of our society and they are
threatened to a level where they tend to hide their identity now in order to avoid any unwanted
and unfortunate events as their life in Pakistan is always at a risk. (OPIndia, 2020).
The author – Khokhar depicts the dark side of our society with us as he tells us about how the
minorities are treated in our society. Khokhar tells us about the incident which took place in
2017 when a 17 year old Christian boy – Sheron Masih got admission in a public school where
the majority of the students were Muslims and while trying to fit in, Sheron was drinking water
from the cooler when the other boys started beating him brutally with the sticks and kept on
beating him until the last breath left his fragile body. (Khokhar, 2018)
The author emphasizes on the fact that such behaviors from minors just give us an idea about the
tip of the ice berg as such attitudes arise from a proper pattern of behavior. When the parents do
not teach their children the ethics that advise them to treat minorities with respect, such incidents
occur and this hate will prevail in the society. Until proper awareness is raised about such issues,
Zaigham Khan in 2016 in his article Insult the Baloch stated that Balochi people are
stereotyped to the great extent and it is said that they are uncivilized people who only know
fighting and killing and it is considered that they don’t have a proper way of living and they live
in deserts. The writer has criticized the textbook which is named Sociology of Pakistan and said
that this textbook teaches us many aspects of stereotypes and has made the Baloch community
angry to the larger extent and that this is garbage that is being put in the mind of young people. It
has been used in the colleges for over two decades but no controversy has come forward to date
regarding this.
The atrocities on the minorities do not end here as another minor Christian girl Arzoo was
recently raped and later on her custody was given to her rapist who claimed that they were in
love. After an awareness campaign on social media, she has finally been shifted to a shelter
where she is kept safe and secure away from her rapist. This incident tells us about how powerful
the social media platforms can be when it comes to making justice prevail in the society. (Khan,
2016).
Sectarianism is a major problem in countries like Pakistan as people refuse to tolerate people
belonging to different sects. Baloch explains in his article how the Shias, being a minority suffer
at the hands of the society in Pakistan. Shias are usually targeted by the other sects and Shias are
more likely to get attacked by the racial stereotypes as they have various associations attached to
them and majority of the people assume the Shia’s to be non-Muslims and as a result, they are
If we look at the culture of northern sides in Pakistan, the people are friendly but they are
extremely intolerant towards the Shia community as the author explains how she witnessed the
Pashtuns getting killed by the locals solely for being a Shia. People from all around the world
refuse to eat and hang around with the Shia community and have attached absurd storied to their
identity. An example of such association is that where people assume that Shia’s use the saliva of
horse in their food which is fake and moreover, many people make Shias a target of blasphemy
Sectarianism is however, reducing to some extent now as awareness is being raised in institutes
about the issue but there is still a vast chunk of society who refuse to accept diversity in
population and are intolerant towards the belief of other people based on social stigmas.
The staff of OpIndia focuses on the increasing intensity of racial stereotypes based on
sectarianism during Covid. As the cases of coronavirus started increasing in Pakistan, a number
of Shia’s landed in Pakistan from Iran and as a result, the majority started blaming Shia’s for the
spread of the virus since the Shias came back from Iran and instead of targeting the main cause
and finding out a solution, the whole sect of Shias was looked at as the culprit disregarding the
fact that those people had to return to their country despite the pandemic. People started bashing
the Shia community by changing the whole scenario into a blame game. Such issues arise when
people are taught to blame the community that they look down on and instead of unitedly
tackling the problem, we just make it worse by converting it into a blame game.
Tehreem Azeez talks about the rise in the misuse of blasphemy law in Pakistan as people have
started using the law for their own benefit. We still remember the young Mashal Khan who lost
his life in his university because someone made a fake account using his name and posted
blasphemous content and as a result, he was killed by an angry mob in his university. The misuse
of blasphemy law is on a rise in Pakistan since every minor mistake or questions of individuals is
assumed to be blasphemy in Pakistan as recently a man was killed for alleged blasphemy and the
murderer was appreciated, encouraged and the brutal act was celebrated by the people
considering the murderer to be a lion. After observing such incidents, we ponder on the fact that
where is this society headed towards? That young boy is so appreciated for killing a person, what
would he do when he grows up into a man? Such racial stereotyping has always prevailed in the
society and will continue to prevail unless proper action is taken against the culprits. (OpIdnia,
2020).
Racial stereotypes not only prevail in Pakistan but it is a global issue. Racial stereotyping on the
basis of race is common in United States of America (USA) as Jordan tells us about the incident
of the death of George Floyd on 25th May, 2020. The incident is just one of the many incidents
that take place in America on daily basis. Black people are targeted in USA every now and then
and this racism on the base of skin color has prevailed since ages in the American society and
people usually practice the white privilege in the United States of America.
The social media is not full of campaigns in the favor of black people after the death of George
Floyd and as a result, people are now supporting black businesses and any discriminative action
with the black people is taken seriously as the recent protests in America changed the racial
Hussein talks about the racial stereotypes on the basis of politics and religion in France and the
French government is widely known for their discriminative and racial stereotypes against the
Muslims in their country. Not long ago, France banned Hijab for women which made various
Muslim women hesitate while visiting France as they were unable to practice their religion
openly and freely. That fell in the boundaries of their political policies and hence, no one could
do anything but after that, France recently made cartoons on Holy Prophet (PBUH) which
outraged the Muslims all around the world and upon confronting the French President, it was
revealed that he was indeed in the favor of the cartoons and refused to take them down. As a
reaction, Muslims all around the world started boycotting the French products in order to express
their condemnation of the French attitude as Muslims are being oppressed and killed in France
because of their religion and no one is doing anything about it. However, the French President
pledged the Muslim nations not to boycott the French products but unless or until the cartoons
are removed and a public apology is made for the absurd behavior, Muslim Nations are not
India is a country where racial stereotypes of all types but mainly on the basis of ideology are
prevalent in the society and PTI states in their article that racial stereotyping should be dealt with
strictly in order to avoid and reduce the chaos in the society. Recently, a large number of people
were brutally killed in Delhi and Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the ongoing brutality in
his speech.
The questionnaires helped our group in gathering qualitative data. They helped us in
We got responses online on Google forms. The majority of our respondents were young adults
or people in their late teens. Questions integrated to make up our questionnaire. The
questionnaire has lots of questions related to the types of difficulties people being judged with
racial stereotypes face. The questionnaire also includes questions related to dealing with the
anxiety and depression caused by these racial stereotypes and how they affect the people
collectively. Easy and comprehensible options were provided in the answer bar, to make
For the qualitative analysis of the given topic, a superfluous number of articles were
pored over. Furthermore, case studies were analyzed. The majority of these articles explained the
negative impact on the emotional and mental health of people being abused using racial
stereotypes.
The sample size was set as 30. However, we received higher number of responses. The
We asked the respondents whether they were aware of the term racial stereotypes or not and all
the respondents were aware of the racial stereotypes and understood the concept.
We asked the people about racial stereotyping in Pakistan and 41.7% people think that it is
highly practiced in Pakistan, 30.6% people believe that it is moderately high while 27.3% people
happens to belong from the Ahmedi community and majority (52.8%) of the people were willing
to buy stuff from the Ahmedis while 16.7% refused to make the purchases from Ahmedis and
We tried to judge whether the social institutions were playing their part properly or not by asking
respondents who were selected randomly that of they even knew any organization which was
working in order to reduce the racial stereotypes in the society. This shows how inactive the
social institutions are that the people do not even know about them in the first place. After that
we asked the respondents about the reason behind racial stereotypes and we got the following
results mainly;
Illiteracy.
Lack of awareness.
Toxic mindsets.
We asked the people whether they have witnessed racial stereotypes in their life or not and
83.3% of the people have experienced racial stereotypes in their life while 16.7% have not. And
while taking the stats, we realized that 44.4% of the respondents believe that racial stereotypes
are mostly practiced in USA, 27.8% voted for India, 16.7% for France and 11.1% for Pakistan.
This shows that when it comes to racial stereotypes, USA and India have the worst reputation.
Then the respondents were asked about how common do they think racial stereotypes are and
majority rated it a 4 on a scale of 1-5, 19.4% rated it a 3 while 16.7% of the people rated it a
strong 5.
We also asked the people about how we can get rid of racial stereotypes in their opinion and
majority stated that the people must be educated in order to get rid of racial stereotypes in
Pakistan.
After analyzing the whole research, we can make the following recommendations.
Social institutions must be formed and speculated to ensure that racial stereotyping is not being
practiced anywhere. Minority rights should be controlled. Individuals should be educated and
made aware about such issues from a young age. Students should be educated about how they
In a nut shell, racial stereotyping is a global issue which is affecting the society to a great extent.
From children to adults, everyone is targeted by racial stereotypes in one way or another and the
society still has a long way to go in order to get rid of racial stereotypes as they exist on the bases
References.
PTI, 2020. Delhi Violence: When Racist Ideology Based On Hatred Takes Over, It Leads To
Bloodshed, Says Pakistan PM Imran Khan. [online] Deccan Herald. Available at:
<https://www.deccanherald.com/international/delhi-violence-when-racist-ideology-based-on-
hatred-takes-over-it-leads-to-bloodshed-says-pakistan-pm-imran-khan-808338.html> [Accessed
6 November 2020].
Hussain, M. and Hussain, M., 2019. French Muslims Grapple With A Republic That Codified
<https://theintercept.com/2019/02/23/france-islamophobia-islam-french-muslims-terrorism/>
Azeem, T., 2018. Misuse Of Blasphemy Law Again On The Rise In Pakistan. [online]
OpIndia, 2020. Pakistanis Blame Shias For Spread Of Coronavirus, Call It 'Shia Virus'. [online]
OpIndia, 2020. Pakistanis Blame Shias For Spread Of Coronavirus, Call It 'Shia Virus'. [online]
Khokhar, S., 2017. Punjab, Christian Student Killed, Victim Of Religious Racism. [online]
Wire, H., 2018. Facing Persecution, The Ahmedi Community In Pakistan Is Going Missing.
standard.com/article/international/why-ahmadi-community-in-pakistan-goes-missing-all-you-