How True are Stereotypes?

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I am an independent novelist, poet, and general bum with a joy for the written word.

My Twitter: @JYCalcanoauthor Twitter Account Page

My Goodreads: http://tinyurl.com/GoodreadsCerberus

My Facebook: Facebook

Blog: http://www.jycalcano.blogspot.com

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Stereotypes are often a form of bigotry as well as valid first order approximations. When we apply a stereotype to someone, we’re automatically robbing that person of individuality and traits that make him/her more than a blank slate for our expectations and/or prejudice.

Yet, now, I’m worried about the power of stereotypes.

Are stereotypes useful as an initial base expectation of a type of people, culture, or ethnicity?  Certainly Israel seems to think so, with their Passport Control asking questions like “Are you an Arab?” to arriving individuals and denying access to Israel based on questions and suspicions that originate in ethnicity. Ethnic profiling continues to serve an integral part of the security protocols in identifying potential threats to national security to Israel.

But we don't have to cross the pond or involve national politics to talk about stereotypes and profiling.
I currently reside in a house with a popular AirBNB master bedroom that has, so far, yielded a wealth of information about people’s habits. What worries me is how damn accurate some of the stereotypes can be applied to some of the passing guests.

Let’s see if the stereotypes match your expectations.

1. The American male alcoholic stereotype– Notable for drinking a lot, couch-potato on weekends, and passing out on the couch while surrounded by junk food, empty bottles, and beer cans.

Teddy – A transient man looking for work in Orlando, found it, and within a week decided that he could be doing the same thing back in his beloved Los Angeles. So, he quit and moved out. As a lover of basketball, all basketball, he spent his evenings passed out on the couch surrounded by Bud Light cans, weekends in the same state but with basketball jerseys. No matter of prodding could get him to move from the couch when basketball was on. He coaxed me into a few quite addictive dicing and drinking games. He had a penchant for exaggerating or diminishing debts to coax me into getting him beer or retain more booze within his bottles. He left behind all the food he’d bought, but took every single spec of alcohol he’d acquired. Not one beer can or bottle of whiskey avoided his scrutiny.

2. Spoiled rich kids stereotype– Notable for a disregard of the law, inability to conduct manual labor in the form of say... washing dishes, and unable to accept responsibility for daily routine, and a lack of understanding about the cost of money.

The Kids (Cath and Dave) – My personal appellation for a young couple of nineteen year old entitled kids and their super-spoiled pug Margo that were quite enjoyable company. They struggled to be responsible given an upbringing of wealth-empowered irresponsibility. Cath had a suspended license, outstanding tickets, and still drove. She told me about getting kicked out for underage drinking in Catholic school and sent to boarding school. (Like, why can’t other parents mind their own business? It was, like, just a bottle of whiskey.) Parents were away on vacation most of the time. She could cook some really good squash recipes. Dave had a head for Apple computers, camera drones, and their nuances, but couldn’t find his way around cleaning a bowl if given a map and compass. Met Cath in boarding school and faced all the forces trying to pull them apart while rolling pot reefers. They left behind one bottle of cherry vodka, one bottle of white wine, three bottles of expensive lager beer, a gallon of milk, and a kitchen disaster zone of dirty paw prints and grime, and moved to a $1600 a month apartment middle class resort. They took every single box of Mac & Cheese and the dog food.

3. The unhygienic Chinese stereotype– Who have a cursory association with cleanliness and otherwise keep to themselves.

The Addam’s Family – My roommate’s sobriquet for a family of 8 individuals, some who only spoke fluent Mandarin. They spent two days in the master bedroom and house. In that time they fiddled around with the grand piano on the 1^st floor (hit the keys, laughed at it), had the TV loud until midnight. Most of the time was spent in their room, doors closed to anyone, separate, and yet their family laughter seeped through the walls. They left behind shopping bags full of water bottles and used baby diapers around the kitchen garbage can (yeah, ugh), bags of McDonalds, and half used water bottles on top of the wood finish of the grand piano. Inside their room we cleaned dozens of Nerds candy from the floor, boxes of Publix breaded friend chicken, food residues, a stack of sauce-stained leftover Styrofoam containers inside the cupboard, and three or so more bags of discarded water bottles. I have no idea what they took with them, except themselves.

At what point does the intrinsic bigotry of stereotypes have to yield to the reality of observation?

At what point are stereotypes reflections of habits and actions, not bigotry? Can stereotypes be both?

I don’t have an answer to that. It scares me how easy it is to match certain stereotypes to people... and how easy said people seem to embrace the stereotypes without realizing they do so.

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I am an independent novelist, poet, and general bum with a joy for the written word.

My Twitter: @JYCalcanoauthor Twitter Account Page

My Goodreads: http://tinyurl.com/GoodreadsCerberus

My Facebook: Facebook

Blog: http://www.jycalcano.blogspot.com

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