Kasie's Blog Post for Wednesday March 24th

I choose these two images because they represent both what the americans think of the french and what the french think of the americans. I too like most americans believed the stereotype, of french people being cheese-headed, smelly people who never take showers, wear big ugly hats, drive tiny cars, and are always drunk. That is before I met a friend of mine now, Antione. Antione came here from Rhone Alpes France, and speaks fluent french. He came here because his Dad got transferred in the U.S. for his job. Antione said that before he got to the states he knew of the incorrect views Americans had on his culture, but was completely unaware that he too had incorrect views on ours. When describing the Americans the way he thought they were before coming here, the image would have looked identical to the hillbilly in this picture; along with a uncontrollably big Hummer, lots of money, and a twisted and hyperactive ego.
Antione really brought to my attention all of the false things we hear about the french people, like how their women don't shave, and they don't take baths daily. I was enlightened, and I think we should all end up with a friend like Antione in our lives to teach us more about the countries we make fun of falsly the most.

I have actually had two stereotypes placed on me that made by far the most impact on my life. One being that I have aspergers, and the other being "the family computer geek". I lived in a house of fourteen, all various in ages, and everyone in our family had "that thing" we were good at. Mine just happened to be computers, even at a very young age, and I think this label that my family placed on me has its positives and negatives. Positive because I tend to do more work in these feilds as I have more confidence in them than I do others, and the negative because I tend to not go out of this circle of work, as I do not have the same kind of confidence in everything else.
Aspergers was the other label I was placed under, ever since I was seven years old. Aspergers is a disorder in which a child is an extremely intelligent human being, but is quite the social outcast. The child may be liked by many people, but tends to have an extremely hard time communicating with others using the social norms that many take for granted. This "stigma" if you will, has really, in my opinion, stunted my desire to even try to have normal social realtionships. I think though, that there is the positive of knowing that this disorder is only classified if you have an IQ of 150 or higher (mine is 162), helps me to have a bit of confidence in believing that I am capable of learning far more than the average bear.

If you truly think about it, every stereotype has is good sides and bad sides, no matter what anybody says.