Stereotypes

When we brought up the topic “white collar”, the picture of a man dressed in uniform, sitting in an official office, perhaps wearing glasses, attentively staring at documentaries, comes to our mind. How about “farmers” or “Computer-Scientists” or “Athelete”.

Just now, we reached into a pre-made warehouse in our brains and pulled out a simplified, incomplete, immutable and frozen idea of a person.

The truth is, we all do it. Automatically. Our brains recognizes patterns; they crave shortcuts to make sense of a complex world. Yet, the crucial problem is when, we mistake the shortcut for the entire journey.

I believe, one of the most fundamental axiom in human society is that every individual is unique. Everyone is full of diverse stories and experiences, every brain is complex with divergent combinations of ideas. Yet stereotypes tell us that, anyone, with a particular identity or characteristics, are all in a certain way. They are bad at math, they are emotional, they are aggressive, they are nerds that are stuck inside libraries at every single moment. We imprison people under locks and refuse to let them out. These locks are deceptively comfortable. But in that comfort, we commited something equivalent to that of crime - we rob individuals of their humanity, their complexity, their uniqueness.

The damage is not just personal; it’s societal. They become the reason a young child might feel he or she doesn’t belong in a physics lab, the reason a teenager might feel he or she cannot show vulnerability. They become the unconscious bias that pushes a bright young man into endless self-consuming.

The next time you meet someone, I challenge you to pause and hold the courage to ask a question instead of making an assumption. Take a breath and look at them with a pair of opened eyes. See a person, not a category. A story waiting to be heard, not a fixed, written label.

Do not let that laziness devour you.