{"id":766096,"date":"2022-01-25T18:52:50","date_gmt":"2022-01-25T18:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/25\/why-stereotypes-are-harmful-and-not-funny\/"},"modified":"2022-01-25T18:52:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T18:52:50","slug":"why-stereotypes-are-harmful-and-not-funny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/25\/why-stereotypes-are-harmful-and-not-funny\/","title":{"rendered":"Why stereotypes are harmful and not funny"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"464\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/1639746200_694_relationship_1600x1067-696x464.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"relationship_1600x1067\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Stereotypes reinforce bias and cause discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>Oxford dictionary defines stereotype as, \u201ca widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><em>Fat people are dirty, smelly or lazy.<\/em> This is harmful to plus-sized or overweight people because it is simply not true; have you met all the fat people to come to that conclusion?<\/p>\n<p>Another example of a harmful stereotype is that Yoruba people are loud and dirty. Behaviours are not passed by being sons of Oduduwa and personal hygiene is not a respecter of tribe. <\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>Other stereotypes are\u00a0<em>Light-Skinned people are not really fine, they are only fine because they are fair.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>All Christians are hypocrites.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>All Muslims are terrorists.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yahoo boys wear dreadlocks.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When we narrow a group down to little generalized negative statements, we feel justified in treating every member of the group in the same, usually mean, way. <\/p>\n<p>Even the common,\u00a0<em>\u201cYoruba men are demons\u201d<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0<em>\u201cIgbo girls are wicked\u201d<\/em>\u00a0are harmful stereotypes because it foreshadows your expectation and before you know it all the people from that ethnic group act that way to you.<\/p>\n<p>Humans are humans and attaching generalized negative behaviour to people without getting to know them better is discrimination and profiling.<\/p>\n<p>Treat people as you meet them, not as you assume they are.<\/p>\n<p>It is not that stereotypes are always wrong, it is the unfair assumption of a person\u2019s character that may be wrong.<\/p>\n<p>There are some positive stereotypes that exist but are still annoying. An example is;\u00a0<em>Cook for me because I heard all Calabar women can cook.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Even if she can cook, what if she doesn\u2019t like cooking or does not want to at that time.<\/p>\n<p>Or\u00a0<em>Skinny men are good in bed<\/em>. What if a particular guy isn\u2019t that good?<\/p>\n<p>The point is people are just people and their behaviour are not attached to any group, even if similarities exist, it is unfair to classify a person based on group behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"GEzVP42CMR4\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NALAG advocates for a uniform allowance for assembly members - Premtobre Kasee on Adom TV (25-1-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GEzVP42CMR4?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stereotypes reinforce bias and cause discrimination. Oxford dictionary defines stereotype as, \u201ca widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.\u201d Fat people are dirty, smelly or lazy. This is harmful to plus-sized or overweight people because it is simply not true; have you met all the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":715187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[549],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-766096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}