Politicians and business use them to foster budgetary decisions, social norms, and to get votes.
Every time we turn around we are assailed with accusations on how poor people prefer welfare to work, black neighborhoods are all run by gangs and thugs, everyone who gets SNAP (food stamps spend them on steak, seafood, pop, and snacks), most Muslims are terrorists, and yes; most immigrants are rapists, drug smugglers, and murderers. It doesn’t matter that there are no solid statistics to back up any of these so called ‘truths’, but Americans are prone to judging others based solely on what politician’s and presidents say. Hitler wrote in mien Kompf that people are like sheep, easily led to the slaughter. Considering today’s political climate — that idea doesn’t seem so far fetched.
The emergence of homosexuality as a stereotype
Growing up in the sixties and seventies, the first group I heard of that bore the stigma of being stereotyped was LGBT’s and the name ‘faggot’ or ‘queer’ was commonplace. If a person walked or talked a certain way, or used certain gestures they were automatically tagged as being homosexual although no one knew if a person was or wasn’t gay because no one dared to come out of the closet out of fear of being attacked or shunned. Most churches of all dominations perpetuated the stereotype as a way…
