I’ve been thinking a lot recently, in light of this current infamous case that I won’t discuss, about stereotypes/generalizations/and -isms. I think, for instance, that generalizations people make are often labeled as an -ism. Are some generalizations ok? Are they never ok? Can someone generalize or stereotype and NOT be an -ist or a bigot? There is a lot of confusion on this topic. I’d love any input or opinions.
Obviously, if I said, I cannot stand (enter race/ethnicity) people, you could deem that racist. If I said that people of this religion are better than people of that religion, then you could label me anti-whatever-religion-it-was. (I don’t think either of these things, by the way.)
But what about other things people say all the time? For instance: oh I’d love a gay friend… he would be fabulous and awesome to go shopping with (I’ve heard this multiple times). Or what about the notion that women love spending money and chocolate? Or that men love sports? Our society tells us that these things are acceptable to say and are often brought up without a second thought.
If someone said, however, that white people love NASCAR or black people love soul food…does that cross the line? I remember the upset when someone posted an image of Obama eating fried chicken. I’ve heard people say that a woman should not be president because of the emotions arising during the menstrual cycle. These are all generalizations, but are they -isms? The fact that white people are more likely to like country music, men are more likely to commit rape, adults are more likely to shoplift… etc, etc, etc… when do these statistics/facts/ideas become racist/sexist/ageist/etc.?
There seems to be a lot of grey area, and I’d love some concrete opinions.
If you’re going to say “all black people like x” or “all white people act like y”, you’re going to have a lot of difficulty getting people to listen to you.
If you were to say “black people tend to like x” you may still have some difficulty, but I’d probably argue it’s not wrong to say that, if there’s some good reasoning behind it; I don’t think it’s wrong to say “French people tend to like cheese”. However, some people will still be offended by this, so I’d stay away from it if you’re not looking for controversy. “White people tend to like x more than black people” might be preferable, because then there’s no need to quantify what qualifies as “tend to like” - we only have to say something is more popular among one group than another.
Some groups are somehow more acceptable to generalize about than others, and it seems to be related to how much they have traditionally suffered as a result of bigotry. Far fewer alarm bells are set off in people’s heads when they hear a generalization about men, Christians, French people or even white people than generalizations about women, Muslims*, Chinese people or black people. Personally, I think this is the wrong attitude to take, but that’s not the subject of the debate.
If your main intention is to avoid being attacked for what you write, I’d stay away from generalizations as much as possible. Some people are, in my opinion, hypersensitive to such things.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “-isms”. Deism? Nihilism? Octagonal prism? I suppose you mean things like “racism” and “sexism”. You’d probably be best off using the word “bigotry” here.
*I considered writing “Jews” here, but realized there’s a lot of generalization that’s considered acceptable where Jews are concerned - even amongst themselves - despite their suffering as a result of bigotry. It seems they’re an exception to this rule.
Usually the generalizations we don’t like are those that cast people in a bad light…
Jews are cheap…bad…jews are intelligent good.
There is a difference between a generalization and an overgeneralization.