I've always considered myself an open and fair minded person. I think a lot of people feel that way about themselves. But have you ever found yourself drawing conclusions about a perfect stranger based on their nationality, how they dress, or even occupation? I think a lot of people do this subconsciously. Not because they're racist, or unfair in their thinking, but because stereotypes are an easy way for us to know a little bit about eachother. The downfall is that not everyone is the same just because they belong to a particular culture or subculture.
Working in the city is a challange for me. Everyday I work with people from all over, and I have to check myself to make sure I'm not drawing unfair conclusions about people. Last semester I took Intercultural Communication and it was so interesteing to learn about where stereotypes come from, and to also see that what you think to be true about a particular group of people is often inaccurate. It's kind of like the telephone effect where as the message is passed along, it get distorted. It would benefit anyone who works with the public to educate themselves on differences in culture. As Americans, we take for granted our rights to speak our minds and challange authority. The right to be an individual and strive for what makes us happy and successful. A lot of other cultures aren't like us, and if we're as smart as we think we are, we would put some effort into learning how to communicate effectively with different cultures, and not to draw trite conclusions based soley on stereotypes.
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