“A Type of Gossip about the World”: How to Value Stereotypes

There is a saying “your fingers are not alike; every finger is different than the other one”.
My first choice to do my masters was the United States of America. I’ve been there lots of times and I consider myself “an America guy” instead of being “a Europe guy” (loves to go to America instead of Europe). But I changed my direction because of the 911 incidents. What happened there was something that changed lots of things in the world, big political things and even small things like some thoughts in our heads. For example, I was afraid that when I went there people would not treat me, “a Saudi”, as they would have before that incident.
Clearly, first imprisons are important to most people in the world. When they’re getting an interview or getting married or meeting someone for the first time, they try to be themselves in a good way. But what if those people you’re going to meet already know what you are, exactly? What if they have you stereotyped? What are you going to do? How are you going to be yourself in a good way if they see only the picture in their heads and not the real you?

Stereotype, as Robert L. Heilbroner, who was a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research in New York City, defines it as, “a kind of gossip about the world, a gossip that makes us prejudge people before we ever lay eyes on them” (date, page). The above example of my Saudi life is explained by what Heilbroner says, but in a surprising way as well: while I was afraid that I would be stereotyped in the United States, I just discovered that I had stereotyped them as well. In my head I had had the gossip, from some friends and family members, that when I went to the States, they wouldn’t treat me as good as they should and they would think that I was a terrorist and I would hear things like, “Sorry, but we chose you randomly to get in the central inspection” so I guess what I was doing was prejudging too; In fact, I was afraid of it happening to me while I was doing it at the same time.
Heilbroner, an economics professor, published “don’t let stereotypes warp your judgments” in Reader’s Digest, which means he was writing to society in general and not a particular group of people. Although we may say that stereotyping is a natural way of thinking, Heilbroner writes that there is a problem when stereotyping, instead of observing, becomes the way for discovering. He also uses the word “mentally lazy” to describe the people who stereotype. In a more academic definition of the term, he says “stereotypes are one way in which we “define” the world in order to see it. They classify the infinite variety of human beings into a convenient handful of types towards whom we learn to act in stereotyped fashion” (date, page). That is, although stereotyping is actually a necessary part of thinking and learning, it can still cause trouble. It might be prejudging people, and even worse it sometime can be a racism issue.

An extreme example of such a situation would be the story told by Bruno Bettelheim, the psychology professor, whose essay “A Victim” tells what happened to him while he was a prisoner of the Nazis in 1938. The story he writes gives an answer to the earlier question, “what are you going to do?”
Bettelheim was a Jewish prisoner in a German concentration Camp, and with the background and policy we can understand that the Germans stereotyped all Jewish people to be liars.
His story starts when most of the prisoners got frostbite, and they all wanted to go to the clinic to get medication, but the guards won’t let them get in the clinic. The prisoners started to make up stories to try to get in and they all failed because basically they were doing exactly what the guards were expecting them to do according to their “stereotyping”. Bettelheim had no plans to make up a story and tried to break the stereotype by showing no emotions; thus his only reason to get into the clinic was “I have to work”. He got into the clinic by what he would call “interpretation of the data”: he avoids the stereotype by not giving the guard what he expected of him as a Jewish prisoner. So now Bettelheim was using the stereotype against the ones who were stereotyping him.
Most of us don’t live in situations like Bettelheim’s, thank god – the closest we can come to such trouble is trying to get into a nightclub, or in Saudi Arabia, going to the mall on weekends (it is not allowed to single “males” like some nightclubs where they don’t let singles come into the club; they only allow couples). But even so, there might be something similar to Bettelheim here. Just like those prisoners, some of these people try to get in by different ways; they try some words or acts, most famously, the “I’m on the phone” act, or the other, “I know someone inside”. But both of these ways are well known by security guards and they never work. What does it take to successfully get into the club or the mall? What does such a person do?
One way that Bettelheim described was breaking the stereotype by not showing any emotion and using the stereotype against the one who is stereotyping you. But I don’t think that this would work in these situations.
Brent Staples, an American journalist wrote an article, “Black Men and Public Space” that was published in Harper’s Magazine in 1986. He writes about black men and how they are stereotyped. The interesting part about his article can be the answer to the question “what does a person who is being stereotyped do?”. Staples is suffering from a stereotype because he is a black man. People usually think he is a criminal. He tells his story, and it’s obvious that he can’t change what is on people’s minds. But he tries to create new things that can help him in his situation. In his words “I now take precautions to make myself less threatening”: he gives more than one strategy he uses in some situations, for example, whistling classical music.
Thus, while Heilbroner addresses prejudice from the point of view of a non-victim, Bettelheim and Staples add a different perspective and they write about being victims. We can say that a victim is more involved in the case than a non-victim, but I agree with both writers. And I say that although stereotyping is bad and makes you mentally lazy, it is important that people don’t deny stereotypes and ignore them. They are also being lazy by ignoring, and that will cause them trouble. It is important that they know what is going on in the world and know the gossip going around. People already have an image of you even if they never have seen you; they have a picture of you in their heads, so at least try to know what your image in their eyes is before meeting them, so you know what are they thinking about you before meeting you. As Heilbroner says “Life would be a wearing process if we had to start from scratch with each and every human contact” (page).
In the end I’m a Muslim so I have to Quote my Prophet Muhammad in a speech he did 1400 years ago and it was about stereotyping “All mankind is form Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black, nor black has any superiority over a white ------- EXCEPT BY PIETY AND GOOD ACTION”