Cause and Effect Essay - Impact of Stereotypes and Stereotyping

Cause and Effect Essay - The Impact of Stereotypes In today's society, our natural reaction is to put people into a specific class that we feel they fit into upon our first impression. When we were in high school, they were called clicks. There were your jocks and your cheerleaders, who were usually the most popular students. Along with stoners, nerds, and then the people who really didn't fit into any crowd, they were just there. When we were in high school, all of us wanted to be in the "cool crowd". As described in When I was growing Up by Nellie Wong, "I discovered the rich white girls...imported cotton dresses...and thought that I too should have what these lucky girls had..." In stereotyping people, we perhaps have ruined some great minds. However, when high school was over and the real world came true, high school jocks and cheerleaders didn't have much of a lead on the rest of us. Their popularity became nothing after high school. Our stereotyping of each other could have been very harmful. Some students were intelligent but never given a chance to prove it because of the way they dressed or because they smoked. We could see it in our teachers eyes, and our own, when a student walked in with glasses and a pocket protector we assumed that he was smart and way above the intellect of the class. Same as when we saw a person dressed in all black leather with chains walking in; we think that they will never make anything out of themselves. Now as adults, we work with all types of people. Most of us probably don't realize that all the people we used to make fun of in high school for studying hard or getting good grades are now the potential leaders of our nation. That jokes on us. However, wha... ...ave ruined some great authors, engineers, doctors or even presidents because of our cruel stereotypes. It's hard for society to realize that their simple classification of a person without knowing them directly could have such an effect. If we were to understand that just because we choose to where certain clothes or play sports, that it doesn't mean this is the only thing we know. Society itself is full of plenty of intelligent people, however, most of them will never get a chance to prove this because, either we won't give them a chance anymore, or they have just given up. Why should anyone try to prove their importance to us if we aren't willing to believe them? We've never cared about them, so why should they care about us? As a stereotyping society from as early as childhood, we have set ourselves up for problems, which might never be resolved.