“Once you label me you negate me.”
-Soren Kierkegaard
Jews are cheap.
Middle Easterners smell like curry.
Gay men are shallow.
Chances are you are surprised to see the above generalizations stated so casually. As I hold you, my readers, in such high regard, I trust you also feel somewhat offended. However I am confident that you are not hearing these statements (at least in some version) for the first time here. They are common stereotypes, whether we like to talk about them or not. Please refrain from sending me hate mail, at least until you finish reading my post. Let me be clear: These sweeping proclamations are in no way representative of my beliefs. I put them forth only to illustrate a point, which I intend to get to, I promise.
As a woman who spent the first 29 years of my life smack dab in the middle of the Canadian prairies in Winnipeg, Manitoba and my formative years enrolled in a German immersion program, you can imagine the vast ethnic diversity I was exposed to growing up. Up until Grade 3, when I met my best friend Tamara, relatively indistinguishable from the sea of white faces that composed my peer group save that her father was from Pakistan making her skin a whole shade darker than mine (which is translucent), I considered a brunette exotic. Going to her house was like visiting a foreign land full of alluring and exciting new experiences. Her dad would cook us delicious food full spices I had never tasted; Samosas, naan, and yes, sometimes curry, although contrary to the statement above no odor ever lingered in their home or on their person. I tried lamb for the first time at their house, a venture that should have been delicious had it not been for a young Tamara whispering “Baaah! Baaah!” under her breath with each bite I took, putting a damper on the culinary experience and rendering me traumatized for years afterwards. Although I myself have never been a person of faith, it was this young friendship that first taught me about religious tolerance when my household was forced to switch hot dog brands to accommodate her father’s Muslim beliefs. Luckily, miscellaneous animal parts of the beef variety are just as delicious as the pork kind when smothered in ketchup. Our fathers even became friends over their shared interests in tennis, badminton and arranged marriages for their daughters. In terms of the latter, neither man proved successful. On the bright side, they are both great at racquet sports.
Since my childhood years I have amassed a wonderful and very heterogeneous group of friends. My experiences with the assortment of people from a variety of racial, cultural and social backgrounds that I have had the pleasure of getting to know have contravened the negative stereotypes that I, along with most other people, have been exposed to in some form or another, throughout my lifetime, including those stated above. My husbands good friend Marshall, the MC at our wedding, and his wife are both Jewish. The night before our wedding they threw us the most lavish and elegant party. They invited all of our wedding guests, hired a caterer and waiters, provided amazing libations and they did this all unprompted as a way for our out-of-town guest to get to know our local friends and family. It was incredibly touching and so generous. I have several gay male friends. Some are more fashion conscious than others, yet not a single one of them has as many pairs of shoes as my very straight and very manly husband. I will admit I have dreamt of having a homosexual male friend like you see in the movies who loves to shop and drink Cosmopolitans and who says: “You go girl!” after everything I say. But truthfully, I wouldn’t change my gay friends one bit. I love them the way they are: Smart, funny, socially conscious, political, sensitive, engaging and above all, real. I’ve learned that being a gay man doesn’t mean that you are bound by some unspoken code to wax your eyebrows and gel your hair for the rest of your life any more than being a woman means that you are compelled to keep your legs and armpits hair-free at all times. Just ask my husband.
I’m getting to the point. I like to think of myself as a person free of prejudice. I know I’m not a bigot. I have always believed that I possess the ability to view and treat people the same and independent of their ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and physical/mental abilities. But something happened last Saturday that made me question my broad-mindedness. I brought a pair of pants to my usual tailor, an attractive Chinese woman, who, through numerous conversations resulting from ill-fitting final sale impulse purchases on my part, I would estimate to be about 40 or so. As we chatted, she lamented her perceived loss of youth and asked my opinion regarding her need for Botox. I gave her my honest opinion: “No way!” Then quietly and to myself I thought: ‘ I wish I had your genes. Asian women age so well.’
Asians age well. This is a stereotype, no doubt, but surely not a negative one. It could even be construed as positive. And if I am to be entirely honest, it’s not the only seemingly affirmative universalization that I harbor. And it’s not just me; There are many widely held stereotypes that could be considered positive: Asians are good at math, Filipinos are hard workers, women are nurturing, Blacks are good at basketball, running and dancing. These are all good things, right? Still, I couldn’t help but question whether there really could exist such a thing as a positive stereotype.
A part of me would like to think that there is, because that would mean I would be free from this philosophical dilemma that I now face. I would like to just go on living my life without the burden of questioning the ethics of believing something so seemingly benign, favorable (and hopeful!) as, say, Black men are well-endowed. But the better part of me knows that though such a presumption may seem harmless, things are never as simple as they seem. A stereotype, even if meant to be positive, by virtue of its nature will always be detrimental to society.
Stereotypes marginalize people. They leave no room for individuality. At the very least, if a person fits into the broad stereotype they have been cast into, that grouping is always a gross oversimplification of the traits and characteristics that encompass their unique make up. More common and exceedingly detrimental, a person won’t fit into the small hole the stereotype allows for, leading to unwanted feelings of isolation and inadequacy. Stereotypes are also harmful for society as a whole. Regardless if they are negative or positive, they only serve to reinforce the idea that people from varied backgrounds are fundamentally different, and this promotes intolerance.
In a multicultural society we are sure to come across people who seem to fit some of the familiar stereotypes we have encountered. We can accept these generalizations, or we can ignore this inclination and choose instead to ignore them and simply view people as the unique individuals that they are. In the future I will try to do the latter, even if it means abandoning my steadfast belief that every Chinese person I encounter is a biochemical wizard who has manipulated the human genome in order to turn back the hands of time.
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