Stereotypes By Brent Staples

The stereotypes are strongly implied in our lives in many spheres of the people's activities. Racial as well as gender or even age stereotypes can be witnessed at the workplace, on the streets or elsewhere. However, as the history and people's experience evince, stereotypes usually include the ideas and concepts that have no solid and real life basis. In most cases, stereotypes simply prove to be wrong. However, as people, we are highly subjected to the influence of stereotypes everywhere, on the television and radio, in advertising, and simply observing the behavior of people on the streets. Thus, stereotypes have become an unavoidable part of the human nature to which each of us refers in some way.
Due to the strong relation of stereotypes …show more content…
The unpleasant cases that occurred to the author have highly influenced his understanding of the issue connected to stereotypes and shaped his behavior. The author chose to use the response approach of ignoring the views and the defending actions of the people whom he met. He writes, “Over the years, I learned to smother the rage I felt at so often being taken for a criminal” (Staples 397). He even started making some attempts of calming down the people he considered were apt to be afraid of him. He kept distance with the people and moved carefully in order to avoid being mistakenly regarded as a criminal. His strategy was implementing the understanding the fear to which other people appeared subjected. Thus, he learned to ignore the stereotypical remarks and views, ignoring them and seeking for the ways to prove people that he is not dangerous without any attempts to confront them and make them feel …show more content…
While ignoring and accustoming to the stereotypes and confronting stereotypical comments stay major ways to response to and combat stereotypes, confronting the issue has become a most successful way to reduce the amount of racial stereotypes connected comments. This corresponds with the idea of Ira Hyman who considered confronting, especially polite confronting, a positive way to response to negative stereotyping. This can be witnessed in the responses of publicity to the issues concerning racial stereotyping in advertisement, for example. For instance, the advertisement published by the Intel Corporation with the slogan “Multiply computer performance and maximise the power of your employees” contains the racial stereotyping since the employer is pictured as a white person while all of the employees are black (Intel Corporation). The society has negatively reacted to the appearance of this advertisement, and the company had to apologize for such approach. Ignoring this situation would have caused no difference, but confronting the issue and pointing out the mistake was successful strategy of response to the stereotypical