Pelle Garly

Culture

1/12/2011

Stereotyping and being prejudice

Stereotyping and prejudices is becoming a smaller and smaller part of our world, but will they always exist and why do they occur. Some people have major difficulties separating the two terms stereotype and prejudice. But if you are well informed, clear rules have been set up between the two. Prejudice is commonly used to describe something of hatred against religion, sexual orientation or race. This could be discrimination happening only because a person has the wrong color on his skin. Where as stereotyping is a more broad term. Stereotyping is everything you think of a person or group, who you in reality have no information about. This could be if I saw a bunch of dudes walking around in big clothes on Nrrebro, and I my mind I would be thinking; Oh, I probably shouldnt mess with those guys. Something that characterizes stereotyping is that you have a perception of a person, because

someone else that looks or just live the same place, have been acting in a way you dont like. I saw her wear a burka and therefore I know she believes in Allah As a young a prejudice free person I would like to claim that I dont have any prejudice. But I must admit that this is not true. Every time I dont feel at home or Im not amongst friends, I can see the prejudices growing around me. All it takes for me is clothes, all of the time I catch my self knowing what kind of person the young guy I see is, just because he wears a type of clothes. This of course is me putting a certain stereotype on a person just because I know someone else who wears the same clothes. I would say that one of the most common known types of prejudice is occurring at the meeting between a Chinese businessman, and one from the western world. The culture is so different, it is really hard to describe in words, but everyone knows that they are miles apart. This leads to weird meetings and uncomfortable situations. And the question is if all of this really is needed. I mean they are definitely differ-

ent, but does it matter at all? Are all of these prejudices that we have necessary? Another classic example is the problem of race. This problem is commonly known all over the world. A lot of people in the world have not got a problem with different colors and ways of language, but there are also a lot who does. The most known is probably the oppression of the blacks, all the way back from slavery right up until MLK had a dream. After MLK the problems grew smaller and smaller and they are only devolving, in my opinion mostly caused by the globalization and the fact, that more and more people speak the same language. In the perfect world we would of course say that no more prejudices existed, and yes that is probably the best scenario. But we must realize that they will always exist no matter how many barriers will be broken.