Stranger Days What is a stereotype? Is a stereotype an assumed behavior based on ethnicity or class, or is it a culturally accepted approach to looking at someone of another group — be it positive or negative? The Oxford Dictionary defines a stereotype as, “A widely held, but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.” This is the formal definition of the word but fails to offer a connotative meaning for a word that carries much more than a mere definition. Unfortunately, stereotypes are assigned to almost every group of people and have become a more common way for people to separate themselves from other people and groups, yet this behavior is inherently human. Stereotypes are used to create biases by labeling people based on their looks, handicaps, skin color, ethnicity and a plethora of other factors. Sometimes people …show more content…
Someone tried their very best to bring me down a level, but I would not honor that request. The true tragedy that day will never be comparable to anything else I may ever experience. Anne Frank wrote “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death” (“The Diary of Anne Frank”). We are constantly fighting wars, instigating fights over race and cultural identity and this is the sad part of life that Frank wrote. There will always be a time when good rises over bad. This world is aggressive and constantly looking to show its prowess in its ability to create wars. Just think about it, every single war and I mean every single war has been fought over prejudices or disdain for another race of man. In the end, this is considered normal. We are a machine that is in constant rotation and it has taken many great men and women to try and stop it, but this machine is just too