Struggle Against Stereotypes

 

Many people these days succumb to the act of stereotyping certain kinds of people. A simple definition of this would be preconceived judgment towards a person or a group of persons based on their race, nationality, social class, religion, sex, etc. Sometimes we pass judgment on people based on their past even though they may not have been a part of it. We tend to categorize all the people of that set as having a particular character based on a person of the same set.

 

Stereotypes range from harmless ones like, the Irish drink too much, to more impactful ones like all Muslims are terrorist. Well guess what? They are not. This one in particular has destroyed the lives of Muslims all over the world. People view them with fear and distrust and words like “fanatic”, “fundamentalist”,” militant”, etc are often associated with Muslims in the US press and elsewhere. Other extreme cases of stereotypes are the holocaust of the Second World War, where many innocent Jews were mercilessly slain by the Hitler led Nazis, and the practice of apartheid in South Africa.

 

The African Americans are often considered inferior, primitive, lazy and violent, who, as we know are not at all like that. The situation in India is also no worse. Many groups of people like Dalits, Adivasis, SCs, STs, are treated inferior in the Indian and other neighboring Asian societies. Sexism is also on the high in the country. It is wrong to consider another human being inferior based on such meaningless aspects like caste, race, sex, etc.

 

The media has an important role in the fight against stereotypes. People start certain notions about certain people and this soon infiltrates the minds of certain other people and when they start believing it, even the majority starts believing those notions.

 

The media has of late taken advantage of stereotypes to boost their revenue instead of joining the fight against it. The government too has an important role in this aspect. They have to earmark certain underprivileged groups and protect them from such harassment. In a modern society, which makes way for globalization, there is no room for prejudices and discrimination.

Article Posted By : prajwal316lView All Articles

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http://www.veethi.com/articles/struggle-against-stereotypes-article-1228.htm

Keywords :
racism , untouchables

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