On Monday, September 19, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out a photo that compared Syrian refugees to a tainted bowl of Skittles. The caption read “If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you, would you take a handful? That’s our Syrian refugee problem.” Many became uncomfortable with the comparison of people and a candy, claiming that not only was it an inappropriate comparison but that it carried heavy racial implications as well. At a press conference in Boise, Idaho the Republican nominee’s son defended his words stating “To me it was a simple metaphor...people will today make what they want of anything, and they see the worst in everything and they look for subtext that doesn’t exist.” The issue is, whether Trump Jr. chooses to see it or not, there is a distinct subtext to this comparison that is quite problematic. It is a theme that has been repeated throughout history and robs many of the American dream along with the individualism that comes with it.

Dangers of Stereotyping

Stereotyping, or an overgeneralized belief about something, is believed to come from an in-group/out-group dynamic that can lead to people within certain categories to see their personal group as superior simply because they’re a part of it. Being unable to know another group like the ones we are a part of often leaves gaps in our knowledge of others. These gaps are often times filled through interactions with those within other groups or from “information” passed on by sources one believes to be trustworthy, such as media, teachers, and parents. These experiences will often cause what is known as “stereotyping” so that one will have a means of identifying an entire group they are unfamiliar with. Due to individuals not always falling within the expectations of outsiders previous experiences with their group however, stereotyping is not an effective way of gathering information about others, and ignores the individuality of people that belong to different groups. This use of generalizations has the ability to make someone seem less human and reduces them to an idea, which only makes it more possible to disregard them in society.

The idea of broad brushing and stereotyping any person that is deemed an “other” in American society has been used to dehumanize and demonize many minorities and groups that do not hold power throughout history. During World War II, stereotyping and broad brushing were used to justify interring 127,000 Japanese Americans after the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor. Many Americans had little contact with those of Japanese descent outside of the attacks, allowing anti-Japanese sentiments to be the main source of information that many received about this group of “outsiders”. Although there was no evidence that the Japanese Americans who were imprisoned had any intention of spying on Americans, stereotypes of Japanese loyalty to their homeland and racial prejudice built from the attacks allowed for those in power to overlook the individuality of the people they were suspicious of. It caused what is often regarded as one of the largest civil rights violations in American history.

The very same stereotyping allowed for the U.S. government to turn away thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II, sending many of them back to Europe to die in concentration camps. Due to flourishing anti-Semitism during the 30’s, many were already suspicious of Jewish people’s “otherness”. In 1939, the United States turned away the St. Louis ocean liner filled with Jewish refugees due to an already building fear of Nazi spies hiding among the refugees. When the SS Drottningholm brought hundreds of desperate Jewish refugees from Sweden in 1942, the discovery of the Nazi spy Herbert Karl Friedrich Bahr aboard the ship pushed this fear over the edge. When Bahr revealed that the Nazis had paid him $7,000 to collect information on American industrial secrets, stereotypes of easily corrupted and entrepreneurial minded Jews created a fear of Jewish refugees being turned by the Nazi party. This caused the United States to turn away thousands of Jewish refugees even though historians say that the actual threat of Nazi spies posing as refugees was almost nonexistent. Many of these refugees would later perish in the Holocaust, a tragic event in history also caused by a government that stereotyped millions of people they believed to be responsible for their country's woes.

Stereotypes can cost others their lives. When a police officer stated that Terrence Crutcher looked like a “... bad dude...” before an officer involved shooting that caused Crutcher his life, the stereotypes of savage black men who are violent criminals, and the implicit bias that many in America have towards black males, caused an inordinate amount of fear for an unarmed man who posed no threat. These same stereotypes have caused the death of unarmed black men and children across America, such as Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. Broad brushing and stereotypes were also used when a gunman opened fire on Dallas police during a protest killing 5 officers, due to the gunman’s belief that all cops were violent and against the African-American community. Stereotypes have caused the amount of hate crimes against Muslims to rise 78% since 2014 as the belief that Muslims are affiliated with ISIS and terrorism grows amongst Americans. Hate crimes against the transgender community have also risen 40% as the debate over whether allowing transgender people into the bathroom of their gender identity has the potential to harm children. This debate evokes many negative stereotypes of transgender people, one of them being the association with sexual deviancy and being transgender. These stereotypes allow others to easily dehumanize others within different groups, which eventually can cause serious harm to come to others. When Donald Trump Jr. trivializes his use of stereotypes against Syrian refugees, he is trivializing his participation in the dehumanization of others.

“You are who you CHOOSE to be.”-Hogarth, The Iron Giant

One of America’s ideals is that of individualism. That no matter who you are, where you are from or the belief system you ascribe to, you have the ability to change your future and live the American dream. While history has shown this individualism has not always been awarded to minorities and has therefore limited many of the choices that were given to them, it is still an ideal that many Americans and future Americans cling to. Stereotypes, therefore, have no place in modern American society. When stereotypes are placed onto a group due to their “otherness”, they are robbed of this individuality. They are trivialized to a set of tropes that have no place in a world where a person sets out to make their own way based on their own merit. When Donald Trump Jr. compares Syrian refugees to something that has no ability to change, such as a poisoned skittle, he is ignoring their free will. The factor that allows for humans to choose whether or not they will make a good or bad decision or whether or not to be violent, as he believes the refugees will be. While experiences may make one more prone to make certain decisions over others, that individual has the ability to makes the final decision over their actions. If one would not say all white American males are violent and untrustworthy, even though they are statistically more likely to commit a mass shooting in America, why would one even consider broad brushing an entire group such as Syrian refugees based on the actions of a few who share similarities with them? Imagine the words “That’s our white male problem” instead of “That’s our Syrian refugee problem”. Does it seem strange? If it does, then one must critically think of why it is acceptable to broad brush Syrian refugees and not another group that has the potential to become violent. If we can award individuality to one population and accept that each person within it is only representative of themselves, we have to be able to award it to all populations.

While it is important to be aware of who is coming into one’s country, it is also important not to let the fear of the stereotype cloud how an entire people are judged, because history has shown us that road can be quite a dangerous one. We must continue to hold to this American ideal, even if it hasn’t been fully recognized in the past, and allow people to stand and be counted as they choose to be. We must do better. We must critically think and change the way we see people who are different from ourselves. We are who we choose to be, and THAT is what makes America great Mr. Trump. It’s time this promise was realized for all.