Draft

As the sun sets upon the horizon of the New York City skyline, the beautiful red and orange colors fade to a mystic black. Aban, a Middle Eastern man, paces north toward home from a hard day of work as a financial assistant.  Parading south down the same street as Aban is a nice young family, so giddy and giggly after a successful night out at their favorite restaurant. As Aban approaches the young family, their giggles turn to gasps as the two young children, 4 and 7 years of age, fiercely look into each others eyes as if a man was murdered right in front of them.

“Oh no, we better run! The Muslim is going to bomb us like we’re the twin towers!” Shouts out the 7 year old as they quickly scatter away. But Aban was used to the critics. He got called ‘terrorist’ and other harsh names, wherever he went and some people would give him an evil glare as if he was literally the one behind the attacks. But on the inside, Aban was nice gentlemen who wanted a large family and beautiful wife, not of the stereotype of a terrorist he had achieved.

Stereotyping is a form of pre judgment that is as prevalent in today's society as it was 2000 years ago. Now, more so than ever, with the new war and terrorists attacks America has seen and dealt with stereotyping. It is a social attitude that has stood the test of time and received much attention by social psychologists and philosophers alike. Many approaches to, or theories of stereotyping have thus been raised.

John Stossel and Kristina Kendall of ABC News, put out an interview on the “Phsycology of Stereotyping” This study concludes that stereotyping begins at childhood.

"20/20" brought together three groups of kids and showed them pictures of two men; one Arab, the other Asian. When asked which man the children prefer, they all said the Chinese man. Most of the children preferred the Chinese man "because he looks nicer and he has a smile on." But both men were smiling

When asked why they did not like the Arab man one said, "I think he's weird." Another child said, "He's like the scary dude.”

Next, they showed a picture of a white man and a picture of a black man. The children commented on the black man and one said, "He looks mean." Another referred to him as "FBI's Most Wanted." Another commented, "He looks like he's a basketball player."

When shown the white mans picture one said, "He's nice." And another said, "I think he's nice except he might be mad about something."

In reality, the black man was just a photo found off the internet and the photo of a white man was of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

As this study shows, stereotyping is an attribute we have acquired at a very young age.  Not only is it something we have no control over, it is something we are automatically prone to do because it is, in the end, the way we were brought up.