On Labels & Stereotypes

Are Americans petty and nosy? This is the theme that popped up on a facebook thread yesterday and I wanted to address it further here. My argument against Americans being more (or less) petty than any other nation was that being an American is not something one can choose. It is an innate characteristic, something one is born with, and therefore should not be included in stereotyping.

Of course, as my mother pointed out on that same thread, many people do become Americans after birth. I checked with the Department of Homeland Security and approximately 1,000,000 immigrants arrive in the States each year. But this only accounts for 0.03% of all Americans at any given time.

So yes, some people do choose to be American after birth, just as some people choose to change genders after birth. But the percentages of these are very low. Therefore, my point remains the same: I believe that innate traits (female, male, black, hispanic, caucasian, etc) should not be included in stereotyping because of the vast array of diversity within that group.

Turning to other groups that are diverse (democrats, capitalists, Christians, Muslims) the argument was made these groups also cannot be qualified. I disagree. What we are looking in these circumstances are groups that has self-selected their own membership. While negative stereotypes are unfair, I do think these sorts of groups should be held to give account for their actions and their group's actions, based on the voluntariness of their membership.

After all, if one joins a pre-existing group, shouldn't one also be willing to answer for the policies and beliefs held by that group?

[Update] In thinking further, I realize that some of these groups (the religous ones) have this accountability explicitly written into their holy books. Both the Bible and the Qur'an discuss believers being able to "give account" and be "a witness" for their beliefs. So, when these groups were organized, their leadership did regard that membership as something which should be held to account, for the good of all believers.