Diversity and Stereotypes Essay

Here are Bellevue College there are many different cultures and co-cultures. It is important to know what they are and to know more about them the stereotypes that surround them. This is important so that there are not misunderstandings and so that you do not hurt someone by accident. No one likes to be stereotyped. There are many ways to learn about the different cultures here at Bellevue College. To find out about them you should first try to talk to some people who are a part of that culture.

You can also research them on the internet or find documentaries from both sides of the culture so that you don’t get a biased virgin of it.

Within that overarching culture there are probably several sub-cultures. It is a good idea to learn about this as well so that you are not stereotyping the culture as whole One of the many reasons to learn about others cultures is so that you do not mistake their behaver and think they are rude.

One example of this is at a school one time a teacher was trying to get his students to look at him when they answer questions and to have all of them sit in the back row. For servile week he was struggling to get the students to do what he wanted but no matter what he did they did the exact same thing every day.

After he talked to the kid’s parents he found out that in their culture the kids always sit in the back and they do not look their elders in the eye out of respect. Once he figured this out the teacher was able to work with the kids better and make the school day run soother. There only thing that he could have done do know how to work with better was to research their culture. But if you do not know they have a different culture there is nothing that you can do. Stereotypes happen when someone outside of a particular culture looks at how one person in acting and then projects that image on the group as a whole.

This can also happen when you know nothing about the people so the guess how they think those people should look and act. When people first hear of a Ballet Dancer they immediately think stick-thin, no boobs, ugly feet, conceited, snobby, rich, flexible, guys are gay, girls are girly and of course that we are all anorexic. But once they learn more about Ballet they learn that we are not all the same. There are some dancers out there that are all of these things. But we are not all like this. Too often when I hear these thing be told about me I just walk away and stop talking to them.

But if I stop and explain and they realize they tend to apologize and want to learn more. I know that it hurts me when people stereotype as a Ballet dancer so it must be just as hurtful when it happens it to others. This goes along with golden rule which says “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. I think that if I try harder to not stereotype my class mates and teachers I will have an easier time making friends and have an overall better experience at Bellevue College. Stereotyping anyone and everyone is never a good idea. It almost always ends up hurting someone.

Yes it is sometimes fun to joke around talking about stereotypes with friends. But when you are referring to a single person or trying to communicate with a group of people it is not a good idea to fall back on the stereotypes that you first thing of. No one likes to be stereotyped. It is important to know at least some of the cultures and co-cultures here at Bellevue College so that you do not stereotype them by accident. It is never a good idea to stereotype them on purpose. It is very easy to hurt people when they are stereotyped. It is always a good idea to do some research if you do not know anything about that group of pe.