Alex Cotter - Journal 1

Think about the group or population that your APPLES organization is serving. Do you think that mainstream society defines this group in a way that is simplistic or homogenous? Is this a negative or positive stereotype? Have your recent encounters with members of this group changed the way that you define or “see” that group? How so?

This semester I am working with the Chapel Hill Human Rights Center helping low income families who are often immigrants or minorities. I haven't had a chance to volunteer yet but I do know that mainstream society is, for the most part, guilty of stereotyping the poorer groups of society in a simplisitic way. These stereotypes are almost always negative.

One of these broad generalizations is the notion that immigrants, particularly hispanics, are only good for cheap labor and are thus often looked at as almost less than human, as a mere work horse. Another stereotype is that the poor members of society deserve the poverty they exist in- that the American ideal of "pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps" is always a possibility for everyone so if a person finds themselves in unfortunate and poverty-stricken circumstances then it is their own fault. Perceiving the poor in this way in particular can cause others to be wary of helping them. That's why the Chapel Hill Human Rights Center is so important: to help people who need it the most whom others cast off.

Like I said I haven't had a chance to volunteer yet, but when I do get to work with some of these people I hope it further affirms for me how untrue, unfair, and just completely irrational these broad stereotypes are, as well as how they hurt the people who are swept up in them.