Stereotypes and How the Media Fuels Them

Stereotypes are everywhere about everyone. There is a stereotype of "the basic white girl" going to get Starbucks, or the British liking tea, Irish loving beer, Asians being smart, tall people play basketball, black people can jump high and white people can't. There are plenty more like men being better drivers than women, old people drive slow, Christians don't like gay people, Muslims are terrorist. Took a bit of a turn at the end didn't it? Some stereotypes are funny, but many are not. Let me repeat the last two. Christians hate gay people. Muslims are terrorists. We have all seen these in the media whether it is said straight up or alluded to. The media fuels these stereotypes that are both FALSE. Christians have got a bad reputation of hating gays and being very judgmental.



I wonder why...........
There are "Christians" out there who do things like the picture above, and claim that God hates gays and all Christians despise gays, and that is not true at all. As Christians we are called to love EVERYBODY, and that certainly includes gays. The problem is whenever there is something that happens like a protest with signs like above, what does the media do? Blast that stuff ALL over the news for the whole world to see. The whole world sees how these few Christians view gays, and they automatically make a stereotype that all Christians hate gays, that's extremely frustrating isn't it? What the world does not understand is that the vast majority of Christians do not agree with the notion that God hates gays at all, we think the complete opposite actually. God loves everyone, and so do we, but that does not make for a good story in the media now does it? All the media cares about is a good story, and controversies with this issue have been fantastic business for them, and making the Christian faith look bad.


The next stereotype I said was that Muslims are terrorists. This makes me very angry when people make this assumption or say they are afraid of any Muslim because they are afraid they might attack them or something. The same is happening to these poor Muslims as is happening to Christians, and on a major scale, especially recently with the attacks on Paris. Yes, the people who killed hundreds of people in Paris claimed to be Muslim, but that does not mean we should automatically assume all Muslims are terrorists. These Muslim terrorists are a small minority, and Muslims across the world have seen the consequences and have cried out saying that Muslims are NOT terrorists, and that their faith does not condone terrorism. And it is true, the majority of Muslims are not terrorists, just like the majority of Christians do not hate gays. Unfortunately, ISIS is not helping the Muslim case at all. When the first part of ISIS stands for "Islamic State" and is shown on media everywhere, it paints Muslims in a very bad light. So, the stereotype of Muslims needs to stop, because that is a false stereotype. Recently a Muslim stood in Paris, with a blindfold on with signs that proclaimed that he was in fact Muslim and NOT a terrorist, and asked for people to hug, Here is the video and its amazing...

Truly amazing. So before you go stereotyping about anything. Stop and think about what you are doing.