My Decision on Stereotyping

Last week I noted that I was uncomfortable with comments made regarding a group of people and noticed that others didn't seem to think it was out of line. I did a lot of thinking and reading about this because my knee jerk reaction was not only were we stereotyping but that we were crossing the line into racism.

Interestingly enough I found out of dozens of references 3 references that there is nothing wrong with stereotyping - since it is based in truth. All three of these references were by Christians. I will say that one of them had strict guidelines about when to use stereotypes and it was more in line with humour - for instance the Simpsons is funny because the characters are stereotypes - police are stupid and eat doughnuts, the wives are stay at home, the preacher's wife is a gossip, the East Indian runs a convenience store.

If stereotyping is okay based on "truth", then I could say that the only people who stereotype are Christians since I didn't find any non-Christian viewpoints that indicated stereotyping is okay.

Two of the writers even claimed that the Bible used stereotypes. The one example both gave was the Pharisees when Christ called them vipers. This is ridiculous for two reasons - he often spoke directly to the Pharisees and thus was not saying that all Pharisees are vipers. He was directing his speech to the one thing the Pharisees said about themselves - that they were the experts of the law. He challenged them on their own perceptions of themselves. But most importantly was that Christ was actually breaking a stereotype - the people thought the Pharisees were the wisest and the law keepers. Jesus was actually saying "this is not true". The other example was the good Samaritan and the Priest in the good Samaritan story. Again, Christ was not stereotyping - he was using an example of a stereotype to challenge his listeners.

The fact is there are few benefits to stereotypes. By saying that the Jews may be perceived as arrogant discounts every Jewish person who is very humble that is not noticeable. Just as there are many Dutch who are very careful in what they say and very gracious and would never speak out of turn. The other problem is that even if we were to accept a stereotype what exactly does it do for us? If the Dutch are blunt is that good or bad or just different? We tend to see the "other" as bad. But everything is relative. And as Christians as soon as we talk about people we have to think of them as God's children - and we all fall short of his nature.

So when Rob Ford says that the "Orientals" are hard workers that is no better than saying that Americans are ignorant. Because neither statement is true for every person and it serves us no purpose. People are hard workers, people are ignorant, kind, gracious and impatient. The only bending I would give on this is that we can state facts - for instance, "the policy of the XY industry is that workers are expected to take their breaks next to their machines and work 12 hours". When someone says that the Asians are hard workers and sleep next to their machines it is why we believe this that is important. Do the majority sleep next to their machines, do they do so willingly and most importantly why?