How Language Perpetuates Destructive Stereotypes

The reason why it is important to study language in a class that discusses race relations, gender inequality, and other subject matters is because people need to learn how race relations, gender inequality, and other subjects come up in their daily lives without being aware of it. In our lives today we see wage differences between men and women, who wears “the pants” in the relationship, more opportunities for people depending on their race, destructive stereotypes, privilege, hate crimes, and more. Most of these things have been going on since the beginning of civilization. From the era of slavery, revolutions, immigrations, and so on, people in society have formulated skewed perceptions of the people around them, from saying all black men are thugs, Asians are all good at math, Hispanics not being able to speak English, white girls loving their Starbucks frappes and Ugg boots, white guys walking around with flows and pastel colored shorts/pants, and black women being mad and sassy. The way certain cultures and groups communicate should not be used against them to perceive their level of intelligence as well. You should not be the judge of whether that person in uneducated because he or she cannot speak English, or just because someone uses slang or broken English, that does not mean that they can not have to same opportunities that come your way. Sure some people identify with some of these stereotypes, but it should not be the first things someone thinks of that person. Talking about the way people communicate in many different cultures rather than how people fit or do not fit under some stereotype formulated hundreds of years ago will help the world start being able to interact with someone and not automatically try to categorize what type of person they are interacting with before actually getting to know them.