People are taught to stereotype other people. Stereotyping is a learned form of classifying and labeling others based on inaccurate information or assumption rather then on factual knowledge.It is not a new phenomenon. Individuals and societies,to assert their dominance over others, have been cruelly and crudely labeling others for thousands of years. It is a systematic imputation whereby the “self” or some particular group attests to it’s superiority over the “other. Stereotyping is a form of delegitimization, “beliefs that downgrade another group with extreme negative social catergories for the purpose of excluding it from human groups that are considered as acting within the limits of acceptable norms and/or values.”
Group Beliefs: A Conception for Analyzing Group Structure, Processes, and Behavior
by Daniel Bar-Tal
http://www.dickshovel.com/jank.html
http://www.powwows.com/gathering/showthread.php?t=31613
White American society cannot undo its many injustices though it can make attempts at correcting some. They can teach the truth about American History and they can admit that they wronged the American Indian. White Americans must be mindful, however, that they cannot expect forgiveness from American Indians, nor should American Indians offer it. White America has all to easily ignored the physical and ethnic genocide of American Indians.The litany of the white man’s dehumanizing verbiage directed toward the American Indian boggles a mature mind. The genocidal consequences of that same ill-gotten image targeted at this continent’s first peoples by Euro-Americans continue today. It is still the old tune played with different instruments.