Stereotyping

I was not surprised reading any of the articles about stereotyping this week. To a certain degree we all stereotype because as Hall says in "The Spectacle of the Other", "without the use of types, it would be difficult... to make sense of the world." But just because it is in our nature to categorize everything we see, does not mean that stereotyping is acceptable. Behind it there is always a difference in power, which makes stereotyping an abuse of this power.
I am sure we can all think of instances in which we have been stereotyped or witnessed someone else being stereotyped. The instance that comes to mind for me was during post-911 haze of 2002. In the D.C. area there were a series of sniper attacks in October of 2002. They were random fatal shootings that resulted in 10 deaths. It sounds like a cliche, but people literally lived in fear. The police were desperate for any kind of lead and were grasping for straws. I remember when early on they were looking for a white van and ended up detaining a couple of suspects. These "suspects" turned out to be innocent, but they were also illegal immigrants from central America and so, desperate to save face, the police had them deported. I remember my mother ranting that the men were only arrested because of racial profiling and that they should have been granted citizenship for the pain and suffering they were subjected to. In this example, the police had societal power over the men they were arresting (both due to their occupation and their race).
This is just one large-scale example of a type of stereotyping that happens everyday.