In light of recent events taking place all over the world I’d like to take just a few moments to talk about diversity and everything that goes with it. I’m talking stereotypes, racial and ethnic groups and what each of these mean. First I am going to start off with where I belong is all of this. So what ethnic, cultural and racial groups do I belong to and what is the difference? The racial group that I identify with is Caucasian or white. Racial groups refer more to physical appearance, I have white skin, freckles and so on. It is because of these features and the fact that my parents also have these that I say I am white. However, when it comes to ethnic groups I would say I am a mixture of Scottish, Irish and English. Ethnic has to do more with where your ancestors come from then what you look like. Lastly, what culture do I identify with the most. Well, since I was born in the United States of America, I would say I am all American. However, at the same time I would also say I am a Latter-day Saint aka Mormon. When it comes to culture you break it down into other things such as religion. Culture is what you take part in, what you believe in and how you live based on these things. For example, if I traveled to Japan on business it is customary to bow when greeting someone. This is part of their culture, it is tradition.
Now I’d like to move on to something else we are seeing all over the news lately, prejudice and stereotyping. What is prejudice? What are stereotypes? What is the difference? Really they go hand in hand. A stereotype is a belief about a certain group of people. Prejudice is the feeling people have towards a certain person or group of people based on their membership and involvement in that group. One example of stereotyping I’ve seen in my own life has to do with the religion that I practice and grew up practicing. Like I stated earlier I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When I was in school, probably around the age of twelve we covered the “Mormon Migration” in history class. There were a few people in the class that knew I was a member, however there were more that didn’t. Some of the things I was asked during this class consisted of “Do you have horns on your head? How many mothers do you have?” Or I was also asked whether I worshiped Joseph Smith over Jesus Chirst. I don’t blame people for asking these things, because there is a lot of material out there that says all of these things are true, although I still have no idea where the horns theory came from. When people asked me all of these things I personally felt a little embarrassed, but at the same time I knew how to clarify them. All in all, after I got over my initial shock of being the center of the entire classes attention I was able to help others understand, and turned it into a valuable teaching experience.
