Stereotypes and Prejudice About the Races - Essay Example

14 July Assignment Most Asian people are considered to be intelligent, however, if I may in a negative manner at times. They are considered to be people who spend their time studying and not experiencing the other aspects of life. Most people stereotype Asian people as hard working in a robotic way, as in, people who are intelligent but not smart enough to handle various situations when it comes to practical life; however, this is not entirely true. It is a fact that most Asians are very hard working and sincere towards their academics and take the same very seriously and I would characterize myself in a similar manner however I am proud to state that I have lived through various exciting experiences during the course of my life as well and have not devoted everything to academics. From Indonesia, I have come to the United States to study and make a name for myself resulting in most of my American friends characterizing me as every other Asian who goes to study abroad. Moreover, I have a hard working and professional attitude and the process of leaning interests me greatly. At the same time, I enjoy attending parties and family functions to the fullest and love to take a night off every now and then to let myself loose and have a good time and thus feel cornered when I am left out by some friends or considered as a person who does not enjoy having fun. It has happened a few times that my friends feel I am too religious as I follow Christianity, or that I would be immersed in my academic work and so they have not asked me out with them however that is not the case as this stereotype is quite different from my inherent personality. As a perpetrator of prejudice, when I first arrived at the United States and started attending my university, I only made friends with Asian people thinking that Americans would be too snooty or would not have an accepting nature with respect to other nationalities. I was under the impression that American people were a little difficult to be friends with as popular culture had taught me biased things for example Americans being too racist or discriminatory against people belonging to other countries. Furthermore, I was also under the impression that most Americans were not too fond of people from countries in Asia due to the fact that they were academically smarter and would thus get more educational as well as career opportunities in the country than Americans themselves. This led me to cut myself off from anyone who was not an Asian and as a result I wound up with very few people as my friends. This prejudice that I had towards American people soon changed when I began to let them in my life and then I started feeling sorry for the attitude that I had earlier possessed as I would have made a lot many friends in a much quicker span of time had it not been for my prejudice. In fact, more Americans than Asians have helped me during my time of need and trouble in this country and that has made me realize that it is not good to prejudice against a group of people or a nationality for that matter. According to the Ruchlis article, the level of prejudice that I felt against Americans could be classified as antilocution and avoidance. This may be understood as I was mildly trying to avoid people belonging to any but Asian nationalities and would not even speak to Americans in order to gain some help. At times initially, I even spoke against Americans when I first entered the city because I felt they were prejudiced against Asians and stereotyped them, thus creating a misunderstood reaction within myself. On the other hand, I feel that I was discriminated against by the Americans with respect to social rights because they would often leave me out of parties and evenings out while being under the impression that I was too busy focusing on my academics. After understanding the experiences that I underwent, I came to the conclusion that very faulty logic was present in both of them; miscommunication among myself and my friends led them to believe that I was too academically focused to enjoy myself or that I was hesitant to make friends with Americans because of what I had presumed their nature to be. This could be understood as argument by laziness or uninformed opinion. Presumptions helped me understand that what people may assume is not true more than half the time because of the lack of communication between people. Thus, because of such poor reasoning and judgment on my part, I lost out on the trust in few American classmates and as a result they judge me as an academically focused person without any respect or feelings towards others in other parts of life which is not true for me as a person. This could be characterized as argument by generalization connected to the fallacy of the general rule by which I understood all Americans to be the same and thus refrained from forming relations with them. My culture and religion has taught me to live with other people peacefully and adapt to different kinds of people. Back home, I am used to living with a large family and having joint relations with friends and extended family members and thus after coming to the States and settling down there I have tried to make this conduct a part of my daily living even here. I host dinners and get-togethers with my friends in order to let them know that I am always there for them during their times of happiness as well as trouble despite who they may be and what their identities may be. Furthermore, my social and cultural background has also taught me how to get out of sticky situations involving prejudices and stereotypes by not getting too tensed about aspects that do not matter to me much. I learnt how to make new friends by opening up to people and also learnt to curb my feelings with respect to feeling like an outsider in the States by understanding that I was wanted by my friends and that they would not leave me out based on a few assumptions. Works Cited Ruchlis, Hyman. "Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination." Clear Thinking (n.d.): n. pag. Print. Read More