Stereotypes

How would you describe people from Italy, Japan, or Mexico? What about Indigenous people from Canada or from another country? What attitudes and behaviours come to mind when you think about a Black person? What stereotypes do people have about your own cultural group? There is no shortage of stereotypes about cultural groups; they have managed to filter into our everyday lives. We may not see or be quite conscious about stereotypes, but they are always around us. One of the challenges about eliminating stereotypes is that they are very easy to perpetuate through unfair comments, jokes, inaccurate advertisements, media, and so on. Stereotypes can support a vicious circle of false beliefs directed at different cultural groups while creating a social stigma among those very groups. For this reason, we must understand them; to deconstruct stereotypes, we need to face them.

Where Do Cultural Stereotypes Come From?

Unless you have travelled extensively, immersed yourself in another culture, have a continuous relationship with people from other countries, or have taken time to study other cultures, it is likely that what you know about other people comes from external influences: Something you watched in a film, repeated iconography added to advertisements, products, or displayed in shops, or they could originate from something you heard from a relative at the dinner table, from a friend’s comments, or even based on a single event you experienced.

When we have limited awareness or knowledge of other cultures, we tend to rely on stereotypes as sources of information. By doing this, we perpetuate ideas of groups that do not reflect reality.

Some stereotypes may seem positive. For example, “Black people are great athletes, Latin Americans are great dancers, Japanese women are hard-working,” but they are still overgeneralizations of potential attributes associated with a group. One of the problems this creates is that when we meet someone from that group, we expect them to be like their stereotype and feel disappointed when they are not.

It is important to consider that within each cultural or national context, racial stereotypes tend to favour and highlight the positive and desirable attributes of the dominant race or group (e.g., White Canadians) while devaluing or limiting the appreciation of minority groups (e.g., Black Canadians, Indigenous peoples, Southeast Asians, and so on). Stereotypes can and often lead to unfair treatment of people because of the assumptions and attitudes they produce. Stereotypes may become prejudice, which further becomes actions that contribute to discrimination.

Constantly relying on unfair representations of a group affects the way we interact with and judge other people. This can work on an unconscious level, but can also turn into policy, where unjust practices can hide. In addition, stereotypes are damaging to people because they can put pressure on members of culturally diverse groups to be more like members of the dominant group.

Canwen Xu’s talk makes reference to the American melting pot, an idea embraced in the United States in the 20th century that continues to be supported by many, where cultural differences “melt down” to create a single, strong national identity. The expectation is that people who are different should assimilate into the culture and be more like the mainstream American. The problem with this is that it assumes that assimilating into the American culture is the most a person can aspire to while diluting or suppressing one’s cultural background. The pressure to conform is present across all levels and contexts where, in order to succeed, people must try to be more like the dominant White majority.

In comparison, in the Canadian context, the idea of multiculturalism was also borne in the 20th century and emerged as an object of national conversation. However, instead of supporting the cultural assimilationist views of the United States, it encouraged the appreciation of individual cultures, thus fostering ethnic diversity. This perspective intends to foster better understanding and respect across cultures by appreciating differences instead of expecting assimilation, creating a nation of proud Canadians that are free to speak their language and practice their culture. Still, the Canadian dream of multiculturalism has a long way to go until equity and respect across cultures are fully enacted in everyday life.