Assignment Number 2

I don't deal very much with stereotyping because I am a middle class white guy. I don't generally have to worry about people looking at me funny because they think that I am going to do anything to them or because they have been raised to hate me for some reason. The only time that I get funny looks is because I am a teenager and people assume that I am going to do something stupid. I guess that that could be considered stereotyping but I doesn't really hurt me like real stereotyping does. The worst that that has ever led to was being followed by a mall rent-a-cop once even though I was not doing anything wrong.

I have however witness true stereotyping with some of my friends. I have one friend who is African-American and is one of the nicest people you could ever meet. He gets put into the wrong categorizes just because he is black. I have seen people move to get out of his way while we walk, or cross to the other side of the street just to keep from having to go by him. I even once saw someone ask to buy drugs from him just because he was black. The strange thing is that he never seems to get angry about it. He just lets it roll off of him like it is nothing. I once asked him why it never seems to bother him, and he told me that it is just one of the things that he has gotten used to. He said that most people just don't know any better and it's not really their fault.

Stereotyping really does not affect me all that much, but I have enough friends to have seen the the way that things can affect people. It is really a bad thing.