Stereotyping. That's a tough one. My wife and I discuss this a lot. I think different cultures have standards that foster certain types of behavior. For example, every time we go to Chipotle, I tell my wife that some heavy-set, rude African American woman is going to tell the Mexican dude working behind the counter to put more of something on her burrito--more meat, sour cream, cheese. She gets mad at me, then gets even madder because it happens every single time we go to our local Chipotle. As if their giant burritos needed more of anything, or these obese women needed more calories. Does this mean that I'm a racist? Maybe, but that doesn't negate the fact that it happens every single time we go to Chipotle. And it's never white people (or skinny black men, or Asian people, or Hispanic people, either). What gives? Apparently there is some component in the culture of the black community in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota that predisposes heavy set African American women to be demanding and greedy.
But we all bring cultural baggage to the table. I have a ton of it from growing up in an extremely lower middle class, extremely small town in northwestern Minnesota. Since there are so few people with my cultural experience, people just think I'm excedingly peculiar and don't generalize or stereotype based on my behavior. But in northwestern Minnesota, people from lager, more affluent, progressive communities would stereotype me as being from my particular area. In fact, if someone from another town couldn't hold their liquor or got violent when drunk, they were insulted by being accused of hailing from my hometown.
What I'm saying is that we stereotype people from different communities in part because some aspect of the culture in those communities leads to the behavior being stereotyped, at least for a percentage of the population. There are a lot of Somalie taxi drivers. Quite a few Hmong kids really do drive like idiots. An awful lot of black kids from certain neighborhoods really do sit on porches and stand around in the middle of the street all day long. Most of those scrawny, toothless white dudes who look like the long-lost members of Lynyrd Skynyrd really are meth addicts.
The fact is, a disturbing percentage of the entire human race consists of A-holes. I think cultural differences make people from certain ethnic groups manifest their inner A-holes in different ways. But the reverse is true, too. A smaller percentage of the human race is inherently decent, and it seems to me that percentage is fairly consistent across all cultural and ethnic barriers. I see a lot of black kids at Bill's in Robinsdale who are genuinely interested in firearms and target shooting, just like I was when I was their age. Because of stereotyping, because these kids dress, walk, and talk in the way that their particular culture demands of them, we often assume their interest stems from bad intent. Maybe we should invest a little effort into mentoring them.
It all seems pretty straightforward when you think about it, a problem easily solved if we took an honest look at the situation. Unfortunately this is a conversation that can't be had in this country without being labeled a racist.
Apparently my reputation as a psychic had proceeded me, since that particular "rule" wasn't posted. As a matter of fact, it STILL isn't posted. I don't shoot there anymore, I prefer outdoor ranges.
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