Letter to the Editor: People don't shape stereotypes, stereotypes shape people

Dear Editor:

Public transit, back-seat. Rosa Parks would disagree, but sitting at the back of the bus carries its own sense of adventure. A young student belonging to an ethnic minority group walks onto the bus, dropping his coins into the machine at the front and picking up a transfer from the bus driver. He walks to the back of the bus, a small grin on his face and skateboard in hand. As he finds a seat at the back, he peers out the window and receives a smile from the other side as his friend looks up towards him. Pulling open the window with a slight tug (much to the dissatisfaction of some of the bus-riders around him on a hot summer day), he stretches his arm and quickly throws something out the window. As a warm breeze streams across, the little ball floats in the air, falling just under the bus. Outside, the boy's friend, also an ethnic minority, scrambles, bending underneath the bus to retrieve the paper-ball. As it falls in his grasp, he picks himself up, dusting his pants before casually walking to the front of the bus, opening the ball as he does so, and showing a transfer ticket to the bus-driver before making his way to his friend. One transfer allowed three youth to board the bus, as the act was repeated several times within a span of three minutes. I was as intrigued at the cleverness behind the intricately designed plan as I was shocked — shocked at how far people can go to save $3.25.

As I shared this experience with one of my friends, he shook his head in disapproval. “Why are you even surprised?” he asked. “That's their way. What do you expect?” While I couldn't disagree more, he raised an important question: what do we expect? In a multicultural hub marked by its dynamic diversity, we have engineered a society that has a mindset of its own. Some may see this as a good thing: conforming to a unified social perspective. They couldn't be further from the truth.

When we look at “at-risk” areas in educational institutions, certain ethnicities are labeled as the largest contributors to these demographics. Insight into crime rates on a global scale indicates a similar trend. A prime example of this is visible in an article in the U.K.'s Daily Mail newspaper, which states that authorities hold the Black population responsible for both the majority of crimes committed and for being twice as likely to be victims of crime, despite only 12 per cent of London, England's 7.5 million people being Black in ethnicity. The article, published in 2010 and titled “Black men ‘to blame for most violent crime'…but they're also the victims,” mentioned 67 per cent of those caught for gun crimes in 2009 to 2010 in London were Black, and the police held Black men responsible for two-thirds of shootings and more than half the robberies and street crimes in London, according to figures released by Scotland Yard. A critical eye was placed on Black women as well, with 52 per cent of robberies, 45 per cent of knife crimes and 58 per cent of gun crimes that police had an involvement with being placed on these women. (For more information, go to tinyurl.com/ldneng-crimestats2010).

Is there something different about these entire ethnicities? Or are we looking for an answer that isn't even out there? We often attribute qualities to certain groups, whether ethnic in nature or otherwise. These ethnic minority groups are no different. Several have come to take on a stereotype of violence, substance abuse, low academic performance and uncivil activity. A quick look on Wikipedia highlights several theories — among which are the subculture of violence theory, the social control theory and the macro-structural opportunity theory — which strive to find a definitive explanation for this behaviour. These ethnic groups have essentially come to take on an intricate identity in the public eye, which can be captured by one word: danger.

But this is not about the trends themselves, but rather what gives rise to it. The answer to that is clear: the answer lies in the question itself. Stereotypes give rise to this behaviour. It may seem paradoxical; after all, doesn't consistent human behaviour produce stereotypes? What is truly paradoxical, however, is how oblivious we are to the environment we create through stereotyping, which gives rise to these behavioural trends. A well-known case in psychology involves parents deceiving their child into believing they were female for over 14 years of their life, until the child finally identified as being male in gender at the age of 14. How is society any different? By making a baseless perspective so commonplace in the social framework, we have almost laid out an expectation of ‘danger.' If an ethnic group is raised in an environment where it is marginalized by the views of the very society that nurtures it, what more are we to expect? It's ironic that psychology is rooted in an ongoing debate regarding nature versus nurture, and while it is clear that human behaviour isn't shaped solely by the nature of an individual, we nurture our people in a hostile environment of negative expectations.

Does this excuse high rates of violence, low rates of academic performance or the offender's crime on the public transit? Of course not. But it's hard to expect a seed to flourish into a flower when the soils themselves are arid and lacking.

Arnav Agarwal
McMaster University

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.