This year I had the pleasure of taking a communications class titled "Media, Public Relations & Propaganda" at UMass Amherst. The class quickly became one of my favorite classes I've ever taken. My professor was courageous and educated us by exposing the truth and corruption that our society has made itself vulnerable too. From how we are implanted with fear throughout our lives to how conglomerates dictate what we see and know.

Through campaigns of fear addressed to us throughout numerous outlets, we as a society and culture have labeled many different persons with seemingly harmless and sometimes detrimental stereotypes. This labeling has led to a clear division within our society, which is sad, because together, man and women, white and black, gay and straight, Catholic and Muslim, we are strong.

A clear case of stereotyping (and one of the most noticeable as of recently) is the consensus that black males are harmful and dangerous. This is due to numerous reasons:

• Television has a conscious effort on how we view people and many television shows show black males as "gangsters" or "thugs", rarely showing them in a brighter light than a poor drug dealer in the projects selling to survive.
• News reported isolated incidents is another clear case of how we are molded into accepting and creating stereotypes. Black on black violence is constantly reported on tv, giving people the assumption that these black youths are dangerous and are looking to harm you.
• Rap music has popularized the negatives in these environments.

Regardless of the reason, these stereotypes have effectively caused our communities harm. Even I have a hard time disregarding stereotypes because they are so implanted into who I am, but I am conscious, and I make a conscious effort to think differently and critically. My parents and my environment is also made it easier for me to think differently, yet not everyone have these privileges.

Yet what is the effect of embracing stereotypes? What does one gain from accepting these constitutes of fear and embracing them into their lifestyle? It is one thing to not like a person for whom they are, it is another thing to dislike someone based on predetermined and often, isolated and outdated ideals of past generations.

In our post 9-11 society, there is no group that receives more stereotyping than Middle Easterners and "Muslims". Generalized and labeled as terrorists, shown as evil beings in numerous TV and movie outlets and ultimately disliked by large portions of people caused by the atrocities committed by a small handful of them.

Stereotypes, like racism, is something that is structured not only into our society but as well as our human selves. We judge, we criticize but ultimately we are human and we can think. We can motivate and we can change.

Our world is like a machine. Together, it stands as a hulking body of complicated parts, electrical wires, nuts and bolts that work only due to its power source. Humanity is that power source, and only together, hand and hand can we truly efficiently power the structure we have built for centuries in the making.

In closing, stereotypes are a step back from the right direction. By embracing these horrible, sometimes subtle judgements of people do we lose who these people are. No matter the religion, race, ethnicity, country of origin or defect, people deserve to be treated as people and not by their given stereotypes.