I laughed thinking of all the stereotype jokes I have floating in my head at random moments, mostly about myself. For instance, I was making supper and I looked down at my toes while waiting for the food to boil. My original thought was whether I should attempt to paint them, but quickly turned to the fact that I was standing pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. I couldn’t help but to laugh, this made me think of stereotypes.

Well that wasn’t the initial reason the idea of stereotypes creeping into my head, it started a little while ago when Ann Coulter was on Fox News discussing about how Hollywood promoting stereotypes of Southerners as stupid and religious people as evil was somehow harming America. I suppose those are harming America more than racism and homophobia, though I have a feeling that stereotyping is the least of American problems. What is Hollywood thinking overly exaggerating people for the sake of entertainment and sales? Maybe they should learn something from our news shows about how now to use dramatic language and exaggeration to get more people interested in watching the news. Heck, maybe she’s got it right. We shouldn’t stereotype New Yorker’s as being a mass group of KKK members, and Christian religious groups aren’t evil cults that capture teens and torture them on their compound for their sins while gunning down federal agents. (That’s for Kevin Smith fans right there.) We should focus our stereotypes on Democrats and how dumb they are. That Ann Coulter, she’s my idol.

I know, sarcasm doesn’t quite translate well in written language.

My point is that we need to look at stereotypes very closely. My husband is an Asian that is a computer technician, and my best friend is a terrible driver and an Asian female. My other friend points out that my family can’t get drunk, they “get Irish”. Westboro Baptist Church protests all sort of minorities and people of different sexual orientation and preaches intolerance. Maybe the problem isn’t that we stereotype, but that sometimes there’s a reason for the stereotype: in some cases they are true. I say some, I’m not a racist or all for sweeping generalizations of people. Maybe, just maybe stereotypes exist because there’s some truth in it. So when some says, “you should be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen”, I laugh. Because I am pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen.