The general modernist consensus about stereotypes is one that serves us a cold meal of shame for indulging in such a social construct to navigate this amazing life. However, over the course of our evolutionary history, many stereotypes naturally developed that ensured the survival of our species-Ideas such as: anything slithery and crawling is poisonous and should be killed at all costs or avoided, helped to protect the thousands of humans at the time from poisonous reptiles. This same kind of thinking was extended to include alien “tribes” and was a strong tool in the early sociopolitical struggle for finite resources in that prehistoric human setting.
You see, it’s a beautiful thing to be alive in this epoch. We are breaking barriers and understanding the laws of nature more than ever. We are not huddled in caves dreading crawling reptiles anymore. We are however being battered with stereotypical information in orgasmic proportions despite the galactic leaps we have made intellectually. This has been nationalized and internationalized. Can you say that your government does not make state decisions based on stereotypes? What’s your foreign policy all about? The notion of living your life from the safety of stereotypes is justified many times over. Most people really do live according to the stereotypes ascribed to them. Look again at the happenings in the world. Do you see now?
But better than magic, those moments come to us when we are shocked by a positive action contrary to negative stereotypes harbored in our minds through self-inflicted and societal conditioning. The thing is, No matter how large and true the quadrat of your stereotype is, it does harm and injustice to the victims it convicts without giving them a chance to speak for themselves when you are privileged to be on a powerful pedestal on which your standing crushes multitudes. This reason is why I belong nowhere. My home is wherever the human spirit lives. I am not confined to borders. I am not confined by religion. I am not confined by political struggles. My biggest breakthroughs have come when I fought every muscle and social conditioning in me to reach through the veil of ignorance and sociopolitical constructs that we humans have created in the flicker of our millennial existence.
Beyond this chasm, I have personally been able to receive and offer help. To break a smiles at many other people. For that, I will dine everywhere and celebrate every feast and I would modify my home to suit your culture, religion so that our minds are not clouded by stereotypes. I would share my small space for you to commune with your god no matter what you conceive it to be, as long as the human spirit in you is alive.
There is no “happily ever after” in this conundrum of stereotypes that most of the world is governed by. Within it, I have been both vanquished and victorious. More vanquished than victorious actually. I am far from perfect and may never get there. Yet I will keep on learning; and as far as my strength permits, I will keep on standing to put out the alchemic fire in this hell hole of a planet and I invite you to join me in belonging to the one big simple human tribe that we all are. Thinking the right way can lead you in the proper direction in everything even when your first Impulse says “no”, based on stereotypical information you have accumulated over time.
