In Sherman Alexie's essay, Superman and Me, Alexie talks about how native Americans are discriminated against. Society has certain views embedded deep within its roots regarding the nature of different cultures. In the case of the native Americans, the fixed belief is that they aren't intellectually capable. Society expects every single one of the native Americans to act the same way. Just think for a second about how stupid that is. Unfortunately, stereotypes are still at large and are accepted today, in our day to day lives.

Being a Pakistani who goes to an international school with people from all over, I've inevitably been the target of stereotypes. Some are funny, some hurt, but very few are accurate. There have been way too many instances in my life in which I have been expected to act a certain way, do a certain thing, or be a certain type of person. Why? Because of my nationality and religion.

First of all, I'm not a terrorist because I'm Muslim.
I'm Pakistani, not Indian and no, we're not the same.
I don't eat curry all day and also, I don't always smell bad (maybe after PE).

I hardly ever let stereotypes get to me but every now and then, someone says something that you won't forget. One of those times occurred during 9th grade science class. Our teacher was handing back our tests after he had finished grading them and we were all nervous but eager to see how we did. Being high-schoolers we started comparing scores. I got one of the best grades in the class and was over the moon, but limited my excitement to fireworks in my head. Out of no where, someone managed to extinguish my internal celebrations with just a few words. "Oh, you just got an A because you're Pakistani."No. thats not why I got an A. I got an A because I worked hard. I got an A because I paid attention during class and took notes. I got an A because I sacrificed sleep to stay up and study.

The person who said that was implying the stereotype that Pakistani people are naturally smart. While that certainly holds true for a small fraction of Pakistani's, it doesn't apply to the majority of us, and certainly not me. This stereotype bothered me a lot because my nationality, or rather a stereotype was credited for my achievement, instead of the hard work and the effort I put into it. I felt as if my hard work was being undermined and I couldn't accept that.

Obviously, this stereotype isn't as serious as others but it goes to show that all stereotypes can impact a person. While Its extremely difficult to change society's long-held views, we can follow Alexie Sherman's footsteps and do our best to break the stereotypes and try to show people that these stereotypes and over generalizations aren't true.

I found the following quote to be highly relevant to this topic: Stereotypes are derived from the actions of the 1% and applied to the rest of the 99% of people.