On October 21st the Center for Multicultural and International Engagement (CMIE) hosted a Cultural Conversation, titled, “Breaking Bad: How to deal with Cultural, Ethnic, and Gender Stereotypes”. This conversation was led by Ka Wong, Assistant Professor in the Asian Studies Department. In his power-point presentation, he brings up the essence of stereotypes, why we continue to use it, and how to deal with it.
In one of his slides, he showed pictures of two professionals and verbally gave two descriptions of their occupation in which the participants had to choose which description fits each professional the best. One was described as a church leader, while the other was a scientist. One was an Asian man in his mid-40s, and the other was an African-American woman. While there was a moment of silence in the room, Professor Wong pointed out that with limited information, the audience would not have matched the profile with the correct description.. He then adds onto one of the early description that the church leader was a leader of an Asian organization. He then asks if stereotyping was working.
Professor Wong proceeded to separate the participants into small groups to discuss and share stories about how stereotypes have affected their lives. He then brought the participants back to the larger group to share what they’ve learned. The participants felt comfortable sharing their stories, which were personal and eye opening. At the end of the conversation, Professor Wong gave us a take-away, “Even though numbers or statistics show us diversities among various groups, they often do not have the same emotional impact or create empathy like personal stories do. Therefore, we should raise our voice and visibility, share out stories of differences, so everyone knows not all is the same event withing the same ethnic, gender, or cultural groups, and thus break the stereotypes in the people’s minds.”