Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover

This week in sociology we discussed stereotypes. Although most of the time stereotyping is bad, and it can negatively affect you and your surroundings, everyone takes part in it in their daily activities. Whether it’s something small such as deciding not to eat a red candy because you think the cherry taste is not appealing, or going to the extreme and not driving on the road with an Asian person because they are supposedly “all bad drivers,” everyone stereotypes.

 In the chapter “How Does It Feel to Be Black and Poor?” in Suhir Venkatesh’s book, Gang Leader for a Day, the author conducts widespread surveys in Chicago. He ends up in a dangerous neighborhood in Chicago and gets acquainted with a gang. He naïvely asks them questions such as, “how does it feel to be black and poor?” The gang leader, J.T told Suhir to come hang out with them sometime in order to actually get to know them, instead of asking them generic or artificial questions. Suhir though that just because the gang was black and they lived on the streets, they were poor and unhappy. The moral of this chapter is that you can’t know someone or something just by looking at them.

Just like the old saying, “you can’t judge a book by its cover,” one has to interact with someone or something in order to really get to know them. For example, a few days ago I gave all my red pieces of candy to a friend because I feared that they would taste like cherry. Now I realize that I shouldn’t have refused to eat a red candy just because I assumed that it tasted like cherry. For all I knew it could’ve been strawberry or watermelon flavored, and I would have never known if I didn’t try it. Not all red candies are cherry flavored. This goes the same for more serious stereotypes as well. Not all Asians are bad drivers. Not all Jewish people are cheap. Not all Muslims are terrorists. One has to interact with people before stereotyping or generalizing a group. Most importantly, don’t judge a book by its cover.