That's just How THEY Are
- Jenifer Smith (Iowa State University)
Abstract
As an African American woman, I am stereotyped everyday based on my race, gender, ethnicity, color, or any other amount of characteristics I posses. I often wonder if there is something that can be done to clear up reasons that people are stereotyped or clear up the stereotypes people use today. After researching stereotypes of different races, I compiled information to help clear up some of the myths generated about groups of people and prepared them for this session. This interactive session will cover many different stereotypes used to place others in "their place." We will take a look at stereotypes used to describe African Americans, Latino/a Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans. There will be an interactive activity that will help you think about how false many stereotypes are and question some of the ways you process stereotypes on a daily basis. We will have a discussion about how stereotypes are interpreted and how we can work together as a community to try to alleviate these stereotypes to begin looking at each other as individuals and not be defined by our color, religion, ethnicity, etc.