Stereotyped

White girl. American girl. Blonde girl. Obruni. Foreigner. These words describe me, they put a label on me, they sometimes hurt me, they sometimes help me, they aid in stereotyping me.

Confronted everyday with my color, with being white, I question who I am as a white person, what it means to be white, what others think when they see me, what stereotype do I belong to?

“a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or

idea of a particular type of person or thing”

I asked Felix what his stereotype of white American girls is the other day and I was angry to hear what he had to say. I found that I was upset because I fit his stereotype of a white girl. Stereotypes exist for a reason. They allow us to generalize, to categorize, to put things into a frame of reference that we can understand, that we can easily distinguish by, that we don’t need to question.

After many discussions in my seminar class about the difference between stereotypes and cultural generalizations I have begun to see and experience the negative effects of stereotypes.

To Felix, as a white American girl, I am seen as someone who can open doors for him. Without even opening my mouth to share my story, he already has his own idea about who I am. As he was sharing this he mentioned that he was sure that I would be trying to find a way to help Sadik, my friend, while I am here. How could he know this? He couldn’t, I’d never shared it with him. But based on his stereotype that’s what he thought.

Stereotypes exist throughout the world. But is their existence positive or negative? I for one can tell you that for the first time I am feeling the effects of being stereotyped, and it is not something that I enjoy.

Most Americans that I have encountered have a stereotype of Africa, an image of Africa that is most probably formed through the media. Most Ghanaians that I have encountered have a stereotype of America, an image of a rich country. Is this how we want to be known? Is there even a way of changing it? Do we have any control over stereotypes?

It’s time to question. Question those stereotypes, the one where you are a rich American to a Ghanaian, and is there anything you can do about it? Maybe it starts within, changing our own stereotypes, questioning our own stereotypes – why not?