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Disclaimer: If you are easily offended by sheer honesty, or you think me having my own opinions is "being negative", then this is not the place for you, and I suggest you leave and head elsewhere. I call a spade a spade, and I don't sugarcoat anything.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Stereotyping and Human Nature

I don't care who you are, or how many times you tell people you never stereotype anyone, EVERYONE stereotypes!!! It's human nature to do so. We cannot help it. It's a survival mechanism. We try to deny it, or cover it up, but everyone does stereotype in one way or another. Some people deny it by calling it something else, or they stereotype a person that no one else will defend. But everyone does stereotype. It's a sad commentary to our warped human ways. But believe it or not, it has helped us survive, whereas humans should have went extinct long ago. Human instincts are weak, compared to other animals. So, we basically survived by stereotyping. After all, our instincts didn't always tell us that a predator was on the hunt for food or if it's just strolling by. So we stereotyped, based on previous experience with that predator. Or if we saw a snake, and didn't know if it was a harmless snake or not, we would stereotype it because a venomous snake will kill with one bite.

I've mentioned this on this blog before, but I tend to also stereotype. I was watching a segment of a program this morning that one of my Facebook buddies posted, and it showed a woman who judges people by their names. Kids pick up a lot of things from their parents. They tend to imitate them. The child's names are a reflection of the kind of parents they have. Usually there is something in a name. I tend to hate the name Kristin, because everyone I've ever met by that name was hostile, bad-tempered and rude. So, I have a tendency to stereotype people by that name as having the same personality. I am not saying that maybe there aren't some nice people out there by the name Kristin. I'm just saying I have never met them. Usually when I see someone by that name commenting on a post I commented on on Facebook, I don't even read their comment because I know it's not going to be a friendly comment. And that is nothing personal against that person, it just comes from YEARS of bad experiences with different individuals with the same name that I have met that have all been unfriendly people.

Same goes for the name Kim. Now, I've met numerous people throughout my life by the name Kim, most have been good people. Only one has been not so good that I can think of. The one bad one though that I know is not going to ruin my image of those that I've met by that name that I liked. But if I were to meet more people named Kim, that were the same as the bad one I know, it would start to make me a little more suspicious of people with that name. But not as suspicious as I would be of a person named Kristin.

This woman even went so far as to say she would never let her kids become friends with someone named Tyler or Chardonnay. She doesn't like kids with these weird names like what celebrities give their children, and she just doesn't like people with the name Tyler. Probably for the same reason I don't like people with the name Kristin. She got a lot of backlash on that show, let me tell you!! LOL! But I think if I had kids, I would rather let them make friends with someone with a "weird celebrity name" than with someone whose name is so uncreative. Well, maybe a boy named John would be OK. Most people I've ever met named John (or Jon) were rather sweet, kind and gentle. In fact I can only offhand think of one boy I've ever met named John that was an asshole. That was when I was in middle school, and he had a sister named Jennifer, who I was friends with. I did not see John again in high school, but I did see his sister. She was in my English class my junior year.

Well that John was an ass. He'd make fun of people who were different from himself. He always made fun of me because he was 6 feet tall and I was only 5 feet tall, and a little chunky. I remember his sister was fat. Much fatter than I was. I asked her if he made fun of her a lot and she said yes. Yep, he was definitely an ass! But most boys I've met by the name John were decent. When I was growing up, it was usually boys named Paul I had the most trouble with. That is until I got to the voc school. But they were grown men there. I was still in high school, and most grown men will not give a high school kid any trouble. That was mainly why I liked going there. Though there was a group of men, some of them old enough to be my grandfather, who were jerks and assholes. But I only had to deal with them whenever I went into the cafeteria, they were not in my class. I don't know any of their names at all, but I did see some of them again after I graduated.

I also tend to stereotype teenagers. I try not to be hostile with them, but I know what teenagers are like, and they can be a regal pain in the ass!!! One of the reasons I never did want to have kids. I didn't want to deal with teenagers. Usually I leave teenagers alone, because well, they're just teenagers! They're big kids trying to identify themselves. On YouTube, there have been times I wanted to slap some teenagers, like that one I came across last Friday, Chim Chomp. Yes, I did want to slap him! LOL! But at the same time, I also realized he's just a kid. A teenager. Being a teenager. Most likely his attitude is not his parent's fault. That's just how teenagers are. But if I were taking an elevator and there was nothing but teenagers in that elevator, I'd cut out and take the stairs instead!! I do not want to get mixed up with teenagers. I have almost no teenage friends, don't want any either, I just don't want to get mixed up with them. There are exceptions to everything though. But I don't totally rely on them. I have one friend on Facebook, a woman who says her BFF is a girl, and I saw this girl's pic, and she is a teenager!! This woman has a teenage daughter, and she says her BFF is another teenager! At my age, I could never do that! I could never become BFFs with a teenager!! I'm not even comfortable making friends with someone who is in their early 20s. Well, that's Patti and Chris's fault. Long story. LOL!

Well, I do tend to stereotype teenagers because I've seen far too many teenagers that would beat up older people and kill animals. Not saying they all do that, just saying I've seen it too many times. At my age, I've seen everything more than once. I once saw on a TV show, a teenager who knocked down an older man. In the show, the man's wife mentioned it isn't natural to knock down an old man. Morally, it's wrong. But nature-wise, that's as natural as it gets! The young always overpower the elderly, every chance they get. Humans these days are so crammed with morals we've forgotten about our natural human instincts. That's why I didn't beat the living crap out of Patti, when I lived with her. Because I've been taught all my life to respect my elders. They're supposed to know better. Well, whomever made up that morale never met Patti. I think even Dr. Freud would have wanted to smack her after a while of getting to know her! LOL!

Patti is another name of people I've had the most trouble with. And usually only if it is spelled with an "I" at the end. Not if their name ends with a "Y", or if they call themselves Pat or Patricia. But I've met 2 people named Patti, in that exact spelling, and had problems with both of them! The first one I met was a woman I worked for. She was Japanese, and ran her household accordingly. Now, before you all go on about "what has her being Japanese got to do with anything" and all that BS, I am coming to that. I have NOTHING against Japanese people at all. I realize their culture is different from ours, and I think they are some of the most beautiful people in the world. But I am not used to their customs because I am not from a Japanese household. But Patti was, and they are very hard-working people and immaculate housekeepers. That's one reason I was not able to work there anymore, because I am not that immaculate. I can do basic housecleaning, but I am not one of those that takes a white glove and goes over every picture frame looking to see if it's clean. Patti was. She told me herself that is how the Japanese live. They don't even allow you to wear shoes in the house, it's against their beliefs.

I did learn a lot from her, I will say! I still don't wear shoes inside the house! LOL! Well, it makes sense! Look at all the things your shoes walk on outside. People smoke cigarettes and plop them on the ground. Animals go to the bathroom outside, including birds, and rats, and their droppings can be dangerous. Rat urine can contain leptospirosis, and bird droppings are known to carry a fungus that if it gets in your lungs, can cause them to fill with fluid and kill someone. A person wouldn't want that in their house on their carpets!! People also spit on the ground and you don't know what that person has!! They may have that Spanish flu, or tuberculosis for all you know! You don't want to get that on your carpet in your home either! So that's why I have this thing against wearing shoes that I wear outside, inside the house. That's what I learned from that woman named Patti. So at least some good came of my time with her. The other Patti, that I tried being a roommate with, she taught me nothing! She was just evil! Well, I guess I cannot say that. She did teach me what I don't want to see in a future roommate. She also has made me more cautious of people I choose to live with. Because I don't want another one like her in my life!

Well, that's the nature of stereotyping. Its a part of who we are as humans. Now, bigots I don't like. But they are very different than people who just stereotype. I admit, I do stereotype, but I don't hate on everybody just because I stereotype them. Stereotyping someone is just a way of staying on the alert. Bigotry is something totally different! That's when someone just hates a certain group of people, and they act all hostile to that group of people just because they don't like them. I may not like women or girls named Kristin, but I would never be hostile with them. I just stay away from them, and hope they'd do the same with me. And I am open-minded. Bigots are usually closed-minded, but I am open-minded. If I ever meet someone named Kristin, and that person is nice, I won't hold their name against them. But so far in my life, I have never met anyone by that name that was nice. It's just so easy, when you meet so many people with either the same name, or race, religion, or creed, who act the same way, whether it's friendly or not, it's easy to stereotype them. We may not want to do it, or we may try to deny it, but as humans, it's part of our nature to put labels on other people and stereotype them. We've been doing it for thousands of years, it's hard-wired into our brains. We may fight it off for a while, but it's typical human nature to stereotype.

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