How do you think it became a stereotype?

Question

I find it funny how people always use the excuse “you are racist and that’s just a stereotype.” Well, how do you think it became a stereotype you ignorant mother effer?

Answer 1

You seem to imply that things become stereotypes because they are true, or have enough truth to them to stick as a stereotype. That's one way. Another is that a few well-known examples of the stereotype in question (my own ethnic group, the Pennsylvania Dutch, are often referred to as "Dumb Dutch"), often for reasons that are disingenuous from the start (a Dutchman pretending to be stupid in order to take advantage of an outsider).

Sometimes people misinterpret a character, real or fictional, and a stereotype grows around the mockery made. Uncle Tom, in the book "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was a preacher, a literate man, and a very kind, honorable one. How his name got used to mean someone who kowtows to the whites was that he loved his white family, as many black slaves did. He wanted freedom, but that was abstract: he loved his mistress and her children. But he had personal dignity, and did not humble himself.

People have created a stereotype of Asian-Americans as bookworms, very studious, acing out the competition by long hours of study. There is cultural truth to this, but they have their rebellious youth, too. It begins with the habit of Asian-Americans to have the older children help the younger children with their studies. If you envy it, there is no reason you cannot imitate it.

And so it goes. Stereotypes are formed when the characteristics of a few are attributed to all the members of the group.