Column By J1 Reporter Kate Schwaller

“Hey, wanna hear a blonde joke? Oh, wait, never mind. You wouldn’t get it.”

Back before I dyed my hair, I got that more than you’d think. Stereotypes are damaging to any community they are put upon. News flash, just because a girl has blonde hair, it does not instantly make her dumb. Quite the opposite. There are many examples of intelligent, successful blondes today. Take Princess Diana for example. She was a very smart woman.

This is one out of the hundreds of stereotypes that poison our society today. Teenagers only care about their phones. Theatre people are all gay. Asians eat rice all the time, and care about grades more than everything else. These are not true.

I, as a teenager, care about a lot of things. My grades are very important to me, as well as my job, writing, theatre, my family, and my friends. I am not constantly glued to my phone.

Why do people feel the need to apply stereotypes to people they’ve never talked to? Instead of just assuming what a person is because of how they look, their age, or what they like to do, get to know them. You’ll find people never completely fit into a stereotype. Each person is a unique being. We can’t be shoved into a general box.

We can also help to destroy these stereotypes by stopping people from assuming them. Challenge them to get to know the people rather than filing them away into one category. Stereotypes need to be eradicated. We can all lead by example to end them now. They need to stop being perpetuated.