The book: Communication in Society – 6th Edition – by Jess K. Alberts, Thomas K. Nakayama & Judith N. Martin was the textbook for this class. During it all I was required to compose several mini-papers (Disc. Posts) Reading them again during my next Communication class, I realize I was wrong in one ascertion but overall, I think some merit exists in this bit of writing:
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According to the textbook “Creating schemas that overgeneralize attributes of a specific group. Although grouping individuals makes it easy to remember information about them, it often leads to inaccurate beliefs and assumptions. Overgeneralizing a group’s attributes makes it difficult to see the individuality of the people we encounter. Thus, a reliance on stereotypes can get those who use them into trouble.”
Stereotypes aren’t always negative, its important to understand that America is largely organized into different identity groups (Chapt 2), or as I like to call them, people with similar levels of cognitive complexity (Chapt 3). This happens because people develop certain patterns or heuristics to look out for to keep themselves and their families safe from “evil” or harmful entities. These heuristics can be useful from a risk management perspective but can also be detrimental if relied upon in excess.
An example of such excess would be stop and frisk policies in cities like New York, where young Black and Latino men were disproportionately targeted by police, often without reasonable suspicion. While some would argue it reduced crime, its important to understand that it also led to the marginalization of innocent people, which would perpetuate a cycle of mistrust, resentment, and a perception of law enforcement as an oppressive force. Over time, such practices can undermine the trust people have in the criminal justice system and damage police-community relationships, this leads to a self-perpetuating downward cycle of stop and frisk and worsening relations which ultimately exacerbates social inequalities.
Another example, as an uber driver I interact with almost every socioeconomic class, I’ve gone to neighborhoods that look like I might get robbed, and it’s possible that I could have been, but the vast majority of the time, I’ve pushed through the fear and had conversations with the people I’ve found there, and what I’ve come to realize is that the only thing that separates us is the level of education we all possess. In spite of “feeling” like I’m about to be robbed, I’ve never actually been robbed by anyone other than the auto insurance industry and various other governmental & corporate entities.
The following is more of a hypothesis based on my life experiences, but I think our values converge and become more homogenous the more educated we all are.
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