Problem with Stereotyping
In American Culture power is everything. The clothes you wear, the car you drive, and the things you own dictate who you are. But do all of these things really make you who you are? The society that we live in says yes.
I think back to Thanksgiving Break two years ago. I was volunteering at Metropolitan Ministries with a volunteer group that I was a part of. The coordinator was giving out jobs to the various groups that were there and my group was assigned to help people unload groceries into their cars. He pulled us over to the side and said, “Please don’t judge these people on the cars that they are driving because a lot of them are going to be nicer than yours and your parents. These people thought they could afford these cars but a lot of them lost everything and that car is the only thing they own now.” I just didn’t quite understand why someone would put themselves into a financial situation like that. Then I started to think about how our society makes people feel that if they drive a car with the name Mercedes on the back that they are better than everyone else. I used to ask my mom why we didn’t have a Mercedes or a BMW. I mean it only seemed right, she made enough money. She told me that “ Why would I spend an extra twenty-thousand dollars just because it has a nice name on it” she said, “I have a top of the line Honda Accord and for the price I got my Honda I would get a mediocre Mercedes.” These people, they buy these expensive cars to impress people that probably don’t even care about them.
The economy in our country is at one of the lowest points it had ever been at since the Great Depression, simply because people are buying things impulsively and not out of necessity. There is a movie called “The Joneses” and it is about a fake family that is created by a company in order to market things. They are put in a huge house in a very upscale neighborhood and they are supposed to market high end products to their neighbors. When their neighbors see
I think back to Thanksgiving Break two years ago. I was volunteering at Metropolitan Ministries with a volunteer group that I was a part of. The coordinator was giving out jobs to the various groups that were there and my group was assigned to help people unload groceries into their cars. He pulled us over to the side and said, “Please don’t judge these people on the cars that they are driving because a lot of them are going to be nicer than yours and your parents. These people thought they could afford these cars but a lot of them lost everything and that car is the only thing they own now.” I just didn’t quite understand why someone would put themselves into a financial situation like that. Then I started to think about how our society makes people feel that if they drive a car with the name Mercedes on the back that they are better than everyone else. I used to ask my mom why we didn’t have a Mercedes or a BMW. I mean it only seemed right, she made enough money. She told me that “ Why would I spend an extra twenty-thousand dollars just because it has a nice name on it” she said, “I have a top of the line Honda Accord and for the price I got my Honda I would get a mediocre Mercedes.” These people, they buy these expensive cars to impress people that probably don’t even care about them.
The economy in our country is at one of the lowest points it had ever been at since the Great Depression, simply because people are buying things impulsively and not out of necessity. There is a movie called “The Joneses” and it is about a fake family that is created by a company in order to market things. They are put in a huge house in a very upscale neighborhood and they are supposed to market high end products to their neighbors. When their neighbors see