Across the globe, there is many different cultures and diversities, along with similar mentalities. Whether it is of a culture or of a state of mind, there will be assumptions made of how a person should act because he/she belongs to a certain category. Since society puts the stereotypical image onto a race or a group of people, all the way to how a person's personality is. It puts restraints on individuals to break away from the image and they feel they have to change their whole aspect as a person. Here are examples of what stereotypes made:
The first stereotype is of Native Americans being drunks and uneducated. The first thing to be said is, yes, there are Native Americans that drink gallons at a time, but that does not mean everyone and their children do. People have the right to drink when they want. It is also a responsibility to manage the drinking and limit it. Alcohol has become a necessity, sort of a lifeline to certain individuals. Again, not every single Native American is an alcoholic. Same with education. There will be individuals that will not care for having one, but there still is a large number of individuals that spend the time bettering themselves. In some cases, the educational environment is not suitable for learning. Not having enough textbooks or resources or not enough teachers. The other problematic situation is for individuals that graduate from high school and want to go to college. College is extremely expensive, especially for families of unemployed parents or a large family. Just because someone does not have the proper resource to further their education or have the education of someone in a different school setting, does not have to label all the individuals as incompetent.
Speaking of incompetence and education, individuals with a mental health disorder have assumptions around that. For instance, individuals with a psychiatric disorder are uneducated, dangerous, and they should be put into psychiatric institutions. When people see someone with a physical disability, there is no question as to "are they really disabled?" With mental health, it is tricky because it is inside a person's brain, therefore individuals will not know if another person has a mental disorder. On the other hand, an individual can be open about having a disorder and other people will assume the individual will change into a new person and become dangerous just for having a certain psychiatric disorder. Many individuals connect schizophrenia with being violent. Or someone with depression as just pretending to be sad for attention. Either way, it is wrong to assume what a person is like until a person has gotten to know them. Once someone knows the individual, they will understand not every schizophrenic is violent or someone with depression does not always want attention. Also, a person will realize that someone with a mental health disorder is educated. Many schizophrenics have an unbelievable ability to be good in school and be knowledgeable in almost anything.
Although, there are only two stereotypes above, there are countless others for ethnicity, parts of the world, communities, groups of people, and even about animals. Assumptions can be made about anything or anyone. Some may not be true others may seem true but only to an extent. It is good to keep an open mind about how to talk about individuals because it may or may not be true. Either way, it is no way to speak of about anything.
