Stereotypes And Prejudice Essay

Prejudices and stereotypes are rooted in our culture, tradition and habits and people with unwillingly can manifest signs of discrimination. It does not necessarily mean that the person has negative intension. Sometimes people simply cannot behave differently. Issuing negative judgments about foreign culture and own culture idealization often stem from tradition, and culture. Stereotypes are common in every society, and often unaware they guide our behavior. However, stereotypical views can lead to prejudice, and turn to discrimination or stigmatization.

Although “ethnocentrism is a major component in the social glue holding a culture together” ( Ethnocentrism, 2016), ethnocentric people generally distinguish the people on us and them. Guided by stereotypes and prejudices, they make generalizations and build their attitude towards differences.

I never thought of my skin color, education, health and gender as my privileges, therefore so far I recognized them as something natural and usual. However, our privileges determine our perception by other people and make our life easier.

The strength and the presence of stereotypes depend on the place of residence and education level. In some homogenous countries, like Poland, so far the race discrimination was not seen almost at all, however with the exodus of Syrian immigrants to Europe, more often we encounter manifestations of prejudice and fear of differences. People have greater or lesser tendency to perceive others in a certain way. These preferences are deeply rooted in tradition, culture and education of entire communities, therefore in my new workplace I will promote social awareness to overcome the racial discrimination