So let's explore some more this notion of stereotypes. Whether or not they are serious or matter or whether they're just notions that people carry about other people, right? So we do know that stereotypes are these over generalizations and characteristics that people have about groups that they are largely unfamiliar with. They become sort of gross characterizations of people without the firsthand experience to either support those ideas or to refute those ideas. Right? So thinking about that idea of a stereotype, what do you think the consequences are of holding stereotypes? An experience that comes to mind for me about the consequences of stereotypes is, I was in this calc class freshman year and I was the only woman of color among, yeah, I think there's about two or three women of color in a class of like 30. I was the only woman of color in my particular group and we were doing like a group assignment on how to solve these calc problems. There is a stereotype that women are not as smart as men specifically thinking about this stem field, that our minds aren't operated in a way that can do math and science as easily as men can. So because of that stereotype that is out there, the men would only work together in that group to go through the problems, they wouldn't try it to engage us in the conversation or when I'm trying to like push myself into the conversation I wasn't being heard. So that made the experience in that class a lot more difficult where I wasn't performing to the best of my abilities especially in group settings, because of me being dismissed and my intellectuality being dismissed in that space. So with that it created a really negative experience for me in calc, because of the hostile environment, because of me being dismissed in that space and not feeling like my professor was a resource because he too was like a white man when I tried to talk to him about it just wasn't understanding what I was experiencing or going through. So after that it became difficult to take another STEM class and I just decided not to. On that note, I feel there's also an internalization part to stereotypes. Right. So I can relate to that story because in the same way I constantly feel inadequate in math and STEM classes, I feel like I'm not good enough, I feel like I can't really get the material and it's just a bread thought process that I don't think I'm Intellectual or smart enough to get these science and math classes. It wasn't something that I originally thought of, it was something that was passed down to me somewhere along the line. So I find myself maybe asking a man or asking someone else for help with the math. So it is when people are assuming something about you and your community, there's always the chance of internalizing it. Absolutely. You are both bringing up something really important in terms of stereotype or the actual term being stereotype threat, impacting performance. So not only is this just something that people carry around as notions or ideas in their heads, but it can actually begin to impact or influence someone's lived experience. Yeah. It brings me to the idea of stereotypes being institutionalized and what comes to mind for me is post 911 with the Patriot Act being proposed in Congress and then passed, and with that, there is this idea of like Muslims being associated with terrorism and seen as potential threats. If there was reasonable suspicion, you can be arrested without trial, without going through the legal process of that. I had a family member who was driving to pick up someone from the airport and just didn't know the front from the back because of language barriers, and so he was entering from the back of the airport and I know a few weeks later after they had caught him on camera and they visited at his home and actually took him in to interrogate him about his involvement with terrorism and with any potential ideas of being a threat to the nation and the state. So stereotypes aren't just something that exist among individuals, but it's actually something that's part of like systemic and institutions as well. Yeah. Absolutely. I feel like stereotypes hold different weight depending on where they are. So I feel that stereotypes on a day-to-day basis on a very personal individualistic, I have a stereotype about your community and that's how I'm going to think about you. Holds drastically different weight and power than maybe stereotypes in politics or stereotypes in the medical system or. Sure. Just different systems that affect larger groups of people and whole communities. So I think stereotypes as simple as the word can be sometimes, just in the sense of a person to person, they hold a lot of power when placed in large systems and institutions. So I agree with that point. Absolutely. Let's explore it a little more. So, yes, stereotypes oftentimes reside with individuals and their thinking and their impressions or perspectives of other individuals who may not share an identity and maybe part of another social identity group. But then these things can't infiltrate institutions and systems and systems and institutions that matter, right? Yeah. So thinking about that, thinking about how the dominant narrative of society and that can be expressed in a single individual who holds office or individuals who have elected office or some other position of power who can create policies that affect people's lives. We see lots of examples of that right now at our borders, in our airports, in our hospitals, in our schools, what do you think is important for people to know about stereotypes and their responsibility for holding or challenging the stereotypes that they have? One thing I experienced over the summer that I'm sure will stay with me for probably the rest of my life is, stereotypes can be changed or can be morphed in one conversation, in one dialogue and an activity that brought that to me was this activity with the youth, the South Asian community in the Latinx community where they wrote down a giant note pad of the stereotypes they had heard about each other. They didn't hold back, they said everything they'd ever heard, everything that had ever thought, everything they'd ever been told. They presented these stereotypes to each other and it was almost shock, but they were laughing about it because the different communities were just in all of that people thought this of them and they had no idea being a person of that community that people could think this of them. So they were shocked and for the most part they try to laugh it off, but I think there was also some emotion of like wow, this is how people perceived me or some people perceive me. Just for them being able to see each other stereotypes and talk about those stereotypes and be like, this is not at all the way on community is. To be able to clarify those and to give a voice to their community, I think it did something for both communities to learn one about how they are perceived and two, to be able to have a voice about those perceptions and to explain to people no, this is not who we are. That conversation challenged both preconceptions that the communities had and they were just able to dialogue and have a conversation and now ideally neither community will have any of the stereotypes. So they talked about because they know they've talked to that community or members of that community and they've seen firsthand that these are just what people think. Beautiful. What you described is an activity we call the caucus group and then the gallery walk. I think one of the things that's powerful is that opportunity for each group to actually become the protagonist and the author of their own story. So they hear the dominant narrative that people have absorbed in that they carry around as stereotypes, but then they get to announce a counter narrative. No, this is where we really are. So what do you say would be the motivation or the value for the group that shares with another group who they really are? What do they get from it? Because oftentimes I think people think in dialogue, it's just for the benefit of the group that's hearing for the first time. What do you think that the group that shares a bit of who they are, what do they get from it? Something I had realized and I hear recently is people with much nice identities are not only de-humanized by society, but they internalize that and end up dehumanizing themselves as well. So I think the benefits of sharing your experiences is humanizing yourself and that can be a very empowering powerful act to do in a society that does not see you as human. So to remind people of your humanity, to remind yourself of your humanity can be really necessary to do to keep going and to keep moving through life. Yeah. Just to present yourself as complex? Yes. Not just one-dimensional or two-dimensional. Yes. But someone who's deserving of dignity. Right. I want to take a moment to talk about sometimes a confounding element of all of that humanizing and that's social media. We know that our young people the teens that you-all got a chance to work with spend a lot of time on social media. What role do you think social media plays in perpetuating stereotypes or challenging stereotypes? I think social media is interests. I find it interesting in the way that it most affects and is most used by young people, and that's both negatively and positively. So it can be negatively affecting young people and it can be positive I think if we wanted it to be. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of like social justice statistics lies also happens on social media and I think social media can be used as a tool for people involved in social justice as a way of organizing. I know a lot of my students had only started like learning about social justice through following certain blogs and following certain people on social media who were being very open about having these conversations. I think social media is also a place where people can be held accountable. You had set this out on the internet and we have evidence of you saying this. So you have to now like address what you've said and correct yourself in that process. So I think your social media does also reveal a lot about you as a person and what certain prejudices you might have, and you are pushed then to confront them with people online and it can be a good experience and then it could also be a bad experience. But I think our young people, they're learning a lot of these ideas for the first time on the internet and so sometimes they don't always have someone like in-person to have these conversations with. So I think it's a good starting point, but also having to rely on people around to you to have these conversations with you. So there isn't any false information that's being spread and you are believing into it because of the internet. Yeah. I feel it focuses mostly on the negative and how it's impacting over generations, but there's a way to use social media, utilize it, transform it, rather than banning it or shaming young people for using if that makes sense. There there's a way to positively use social media. Not a lot of people think that's possible. So it really should become a space where dialogue, even electronic dialogue can occur. Yeah. Where dominant narratives can be challenged. Yeah. Where continuities can be shared. Right. Yeah. That's Fantastic. Thank you.
