Like, i can’t genuinely understand why I see so many post and memes about things like: “White people things that black people enjoy” “Black people things that white people should try” “Thing that Asian people should make others do”
It feels like people in the U.S. the moment they see someone skin color they immediately make sweeping generalisations about them (which sounds super racist to me but OK), which also makes integration more difficult, because instead of an interesting mixture of cultures it makes for immovable blocks of stereotypes
Am I just seeing a small bubble of content or missing something or what? Please explain it to me
Our brains are masterful at categorizing information and externalizing information for efficiency (i.e. wow your car smells like my babysitter’s car from when I was 4—that’s weird, she drove us to the beach and we rode in rowboats in the pond and fed ducks that day).
If you want actual scientific discourse on this, I implore you to look into social psychology, which presents this in a brilliant little pipeline.
Stereotypes emerge from a “kernel of truth”—which may be false, socially constructed, or only true in a narrow context. When generalized, they become prejudice (pre-judging), which leads to discrimination. When embedded in systems, this discrimination reinforces racism, sexism, and other structural inequalities.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Importantly, this is not just a U.S. issue—it’s a human issue. Our brains naturally categorize to conserve cognitive resources, making this tendency easy to exploit without proper education. And it is exploited—everywhere. From the gendered pricing of products like women’s razors to the way news stories frame subjects based on race or class, these biases shape perception and reinforce systemic inequalities across societies.
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