There's a
popular criticism of marginalized groups: "If you don't want to be
stereotyped, then don't be a stereotype." I used to parrot that mantra
when I was younger, but now I hate it. It places the onus of preventing
discrimination on the people who are being discriminated against. It assumes
the abuse and disenfranchisement they face must be based on their own behavior,
whether or not the speaker would go so far as to say they "deserve"
it. But people in positions of power, both social and financial, are always
looking for excuses to step on the hands of those below them on the ladder, and
those underneath them are not there of their own volition. People invested in
maintaining privilege—which does not mean preserving the luxuries they have,
but aggressively denying those same advantages to others—will stereotype and
dehumanize those they see as inferior, regardless of how hard the ones they're
targeting try to seem "respectable." If they can't find a reason to
stereotype, they will invent one. And even if somebody of that group does match
a negative caricature and is rejected on that basis, it's still completely
unfair to believe they are at fault for their entire group being attacked and
dismissed. To believe that is to make the individual into the mascot of their
whole group. Seeing one person as wholly representative is deeply harmful in
itself, whether they're regarded as a positive or negative symbol. But if
someone is determined to find an unflattering mascot for a group, then it shows
they were already committed to stereotyping them harshly, long before they
actually found a person to confirm their prejudices.
A related thought: many privileged people seem to think they're not bigoted as long as the stereotypes they assign to disadvantaged groups are blamed on "cultural problems," rather than biology. But saying that a disempowered group is to blame for their own struggles because of a "cultural problem" (within their own culture, rather than the dominant one) is really no less bigoted than saying they're genetically inferior, because the former explanation entails the belief that all of their problems result from their own choices. It's saying that the populace in question has a collective attitude problem.
A related thought: many privileged people seem to think they're not bigoted as long as the stereotypes they assign to disadvantaged groups are blamed on "cultural problems," rather than biology. But saying that a disempowered group is to blame for their own struggles because of a "cultural problem" (within their own culture, rather than the dominant one) is really no less bigoted than saying they're genetically inferior, because the former explanation entails the belief that all of their problems result from their own choices. It's saying that the populace in question has a collective attitude problem.
