You’re sitting with your group of friends and someone walks past. A friend of yours in the group makes a random remark.
"Oh these people. I would never associate myself with frafras. They are dirty and eat cats."
Everyone in your group laughs including you. However, you later feel bad for laughing because the comment was
1. Prejudiced 2. Stereotypical
In our community today, so many people say so many things about other individuals in general without actually realizing the damage it does to those individuals and their communities. Before I get to my point, let me define stereotype and prejudice for you. A stereotype is a fixed and oversimplify lified view of an individual or group of individuals that is widely held by people. Prejudice is the dislike or unjust behavior deriving from unfounded opinions. As a young Ghanaian American woman, I grew up surrounded by stereotypes. I used to hear things like “Americans are so dumb” or “Yorubas are so dirty” and being the person that I was (I am Yoruban) it hurt hearing some of these stereotypical comments. In the everyday speech and interaction of Ghanaians in the Ghanaian society, there is one form of prejudice or stereotype. In fact, it has been so embedded into our culture that when you tell a Ghanaian that his or her comment was stereotypical, they might ask “But what’s the problem?”
The problem is that it has many negative implications. Firstly, it puts labels on people from the way they live to the way they act. It makes individuals feel ashamed of doing something that they want to do because they fear that they will be stereotyped. Stereotypes beget prejudice and prejudice beget discrimination. Children also grow up thinking that they should act in a specific way because ‘society thinks it’s ideal’. In the end, stereotyping and prejudice causes more problems than it solves (not that it solves anything). As individuals and as a community, we should be cautious about our words.
Have you ever faced a form of prejudice or stereotype? How did you overcome them? I would love to hear all about it in the comment section below.
At first I was one of those people who was part to make it funny,Never knew it hurts till I had myself in the same shoe,it wasn’t funny at all
I have lived and experienced these stereotypes especially in school while growing up as a child. People wouldn’t play with you because you belong to “certain group” in the society. The earlier we talk about it, the better for us all.