I can still feel Brian’s energy as I sat in a circle of child philosophers, examining prejudice and how it hurts both its victims and the bigot. Cleverly positioned next to me by teacher design, he rolled under my chair, hung on its back, and poked his head out from a rung of my now rocking chair to comment: “Why would anyone need to prejudge me? As soon as they meet me, I can give them reasons not to like me!” While his classmates roared with laughter, Brian collected all his limbs, sat up tall, and concluded: “Nobody should have a label stuck on their back. We just need to remember everyone is handicapped in some way. And we are all different. What’s that word you said?”

My word that day was “stereotype” and it’s my word today. Brian reminds us that there’s something each of us can do every day to improve the world. Good news, yes? We can stop lumping individuals together into arbitrary groups and assume that they all share certain characteristics. It’s so easy to do. All Pakistanis. All surfers. All Haitians. All plumbers. Pigeonholed. All librarians. All minimum wage workers. All power lifters. All Somalis. Trapped. All politicians. All Sikhs. All gymnasts. All inmates. All boys. All girls. Categorized. All or nothing.

All wrong. All dangerous.

Stereotyping, when unchecked, is the root of simmering prejudice that grows and spreads into larger systems of injustice—it justifies racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, for starters. But if we’re vigilant, we can get better and better at recognizing the power of cultural tapes that play in and with our heads. And we can turn first down and then off the voices yelling at us how we “should” be—how they “are.” We can stop thinking in terms of “that type” altogether, and as wiggling Brian suggests, let someone give us a reason not to like them. All Blacks are not the same. All immigrants are not the same. All nursing home residents are not the same. I can still hear my light-skinned college student, who had never traveled out of Central Virginia, instruct his classmates about Mexicans. I watch a replay of the international race car driver patiently explaining to our class his expertise on what women want. I behold yet again the wealthy college boy denigrating those poor people who refused to evacuate before the hurricane struck.

We fail to see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.

“Existence precedes essence” Jean-Paul Sartre maintains (Existentialism Is a Humanism). There’s no pre-packaged recipe for humanity—each of us shows up on the playing field of life and paints our self-portrait. I make me who I am. You make you who you are. The twists and turns, the decisions and changes, the risks and challenges, the priorities and loves—I define my essence and you define yours. For Sartre, the temptation to conform to societal pressure, the refusal to accept freedom and embrace individuality, poses the single worst threat to human potential. Ignoring another person’s individuality delivers them the worst blow.

In talking with students about the mind-trap of stereotyping, I present a list of brief descriptions and they (and I) write down our preconceptions about these unknown people, one at a time. How do you picture X, what do you suspect about Y, who do you know just like Z? We’re all in the stereotyping soup together—we impose those loud cultural voices on others and on ourselves. Here we go.

What image do you see, what strikes you immediately when you hear these descriptors? Rugby player. Newly minted US citizen, devoted to the country that made a dream come true. That salsa dancer. This adamant never a gun owner and never will be. The kid growing up in a trailer park whose parents’ lack a high school education. Hey now, here’s a scholar with a graduate degree focused on narcoterrorism. Anyone’s favorite movies, let’s see, “Midnight in Paris” or “Just Mercy” or “Black Panther.” Look, a shaved head and tattoo stretching down one pale arm. Ooh, the driver of that vintage Saab convertible. An appreciative reader of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, a book recommended by President Obama.

More descriptors, and we, now uncomfortable with the ease of doing so, project our images on more people we’ve never met. An accomplished jazz dancer, performing in Vegas productions, theater, and commercials. The Army Reservist deployed to Afghanistan where friends died, trained in the use of handguns, assault rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers. Anyone’s favorite music, oh, heavy metal or Jason Mraz or “Hamilton.” This martial artist. A researcher, steeped in data and statistics, blown away by anyone’s denial of systemic racism. Look at that patio lounger professing a fervent desire to add value to the world, tossing back a cold beer while kicking flip flops to the wind.

Who are all these people? They are, every single one, my friend Craig.

image credit: public domain certification

Craig singlehandedly, without trying, defangs the stereotyping mindset defined by philosopher Elizabeth Spelman as “essentialism”—the belief that there are fundamental qualities inherent in all members of a group. “Perhaps because we learn the categories so early and are continually asked to reflect our knowledge of them, they seem unproblematic,” Spelman warns (Inessential Woman). Girls skip rope. Boys kick balls. Right? Women pipe down and aim to please. Men speak up and make demands. Got it. Far from harmless, these unchallenged norms cause emotional claustrophobia, keeping most of us in line and out of trouble. Spelman pictures the stereotypes as doors that we are expected to walk through, and the more doors we enter the narrower the passage—Filipino, single father, custodian, twenty-two, his case closed and door locked. “It may well be that those with the most power don’t have doors” (Inessential Woman). Exactly.

Stereotyping touches us all to some extent—we internalize the “norm” early and sew alterations into the fabric of our selves. At the same time, we expect others to fit into the same cramped cubbyholes that seduced us. All Asians are smart. All Cubans like baseball. All philosophers are airheads. My 28-year-old godchild Will and I have recently dipped into the dark waters of what he calls the “Be a Man” con. I watched this tap-dancing, bald eagle loving, putt-putt cheating, sensitive and merry little boy steel himself against the dawning awareness of the expectations of his approaching “manhood.” All the while, he also stole tender parts of his nature from himself. How much did he bend to cultural expectations? What unnecessary sacrifices did he make? We’ll never know, Will and I agree, and despite his happy life now, it’s worth the effort to keep dipping—for him, for me, for you. We must spare ourselves more personal suffocation while we gladly let others be.

Can we defeat our lapses into stereotyping? Can we free others and ourselves? Yes, we can. It’s never too late. Freedom always matters.

Chadwick Boseman proves that we can elevate our humanity as high as the sky over Wakanda. “We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe,” King T’Challa pleads in the “Black Panther.” The devastated family of Jacob Blake and the community of Kenosha did just that, ratcheting human potential way up with a dancing cookout—pulling together with healing circles and haircuts, Covid tests and voter registration, and, of course, a Wakanda-themed bounce house.

Boseman lawyered up as Thurgood Marshall, strutted as James Brown, and fielded insults and grounders as Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson. But his starring role that will stand the test of all time is his creation of himself. “Life is nothing until it is lived” Sartre insists (Existentialism Is a Humanism). Boseman lived his life—it belonged to him. And he redefined “superhero” in the personal qualities attributed to him by his friends: gentle, humble, funny, loving, giving, genuine, private, selfless, honest, kind, grateful.

Beloved Boseman spoke on behalf of the winning “Black Panther” cast at the 2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards: “We know what it is like to be told there isn’t a screen for you to be featured on, a stage for you to be featured on…. We know what it is like to be beneath and not above. And that is what we went to work with every day. We knew that we could create a world that exemplified a world we wanted to see. We knew that we had something to give.”

I cede the remainder of my time to the King of Wakanda. He gives his MTV award to shocked hero James Shaw Jr., who saved lives at a Tennessee Waffle House by fighting off a right-winged gunman. He sings his mentor Denzel Washington’s praises as Washington receives the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. And he empowers not only Howard University graduates, years ago including Kamala Harris, but all of us in his 2018 Commencement Address.

“Black Panther” opens with a request from a young boy. “Papa, tell me a story.

Which one?

The story of home.”

A rose from home. And Senegalese roses for Chadwick Boseman.

Stereotyping? Quick! Click on "Undo Typing"

We fail to see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.