Stereotypes

[while1]

I expect sorority girls most people to have shrill voices and say things that make me weep in agony and pity for the human race.

Fixed

Sidoh isn't that jaded or full of himself.  Having met him IRL- I can definitely imagine him double facepalming when he's talking to a sorority girl.

[Sidoh]

Heh. I think my social circles afford me the benefit of not having to interact with many people that upset me for being dumb. There are times I start thinking like that, though... people are pretty stupid. :(

[Rule]

Given how generally stupid and insane people are, it's amazing the world works at all.  "Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives", John Lennon.

[CrAz3D]

Black men don't raise their kids?  wtf?

Stereotypes are inaccurate basically by definition.   Some will happen to be correct now and then in the sense that a broken clock will occasionally have the right time.

I generally agree with the whole "clock is right twice a day" but I also recognize that stereotypes aren't always imagined.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/14/us-usa-fathers-idUSN0419185720070614
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/us/politics/15cnd-obama.html

Also, black males are more likely to end up in jail/commit crimes.

That said, I suspect (more than suspect) most of this has to do with socio-economic status moreso than race. I guess people should really be more afraid of poor looking people than black looking people. Well, poor people that dress like thugs (damn hoodies!)

I know some people who are stereotypes, and I know people who aren't. I love the way Rule put it - a broken clock will occasionally have the right time.

That being said, I think there are some stereotypes that are more relevant than others. The solvent-abusing homeless people in my city, the effeminate gay man, the socially awkward geek.. those are stereotypes I see every day, but they're far from 100%.

Word re: 100%. Nevertheless, stereotypes inform how we interact with society. I sorta wonder to what degree people base interactions on stereotypes. My guess is a lot, since we don't really learn "facts about people" in school. Without something else to inform our interactions, we basically have to rely on stereotypes.

Stereotypes can be self-reinforcing, too. Like, in my city there are serious problems with poverty, alcoholism, drug use, violent crime, etc. amongst the native population. Are natives naturally bad? Of course not. But the fact that society assumes they will be - and that the children are being raised in that type of environment - leads us to the bad situation we're in. The widespread racism seen in my city (and others, too, but mine is far worse for this than anywhere I've been).

It really sucks, though, but I don't know how you break the cycle at this point.

There is a lawsuit in ... Nebraska? where a tribe is asking the courts to close some liquor stores because natives are more susceptible to booze harming them. *shrug*
Val Kilmer caught all sorts of hell a few years back by saying that most people around his NM ranch are drunks (northern NM rural natives & hispanics are "known" for drinking lots).

I expect sorority girls to have shrill voices and say things that make me weep in agony and pity for the human race. I expect frat guys to wear pastel polos and care more about the party tomorrow night than their academics and wasted tuition.

As someone who deals with these kinds of people on a near-daily basis, your first stereotype couldn't be much more accurate. And your frat boy stereotype is still pretty accurate, even though nobody in my fraternity really fits that stereotype. It does describe every other guy in every other fraternity on campus, though!

A friend is currently attending UNC. I met up with him there last summer and he remarked that "if the frats at NMSU weren't so douchey and were cool like here, I would've joined." The frats didnt change; my friend changed. He was dressed in stereotypical frat swag (boat shoes, whatever khaki shorts, etc). Whatever, but it isn't that the frats changed much. Frats seem to be equally douchey across the US (he introduced me to some frat-friends he has there, and they rather resembled the frat kids I knew in undergrad).