Introduction
Stereotypes and various kinds of prejudice against people of different races and ethnic groups are rather often held by students and people on the whole. This is a rather important issue due to the fact that racial conflicts that might be caused by various misunderstandings and stereotypes can be the reasons for serious, even armed conflicts, and human society is to fight against them by all means. Special importance is attributed to these issues in the so-called multicultural societies where the representatives of various races, cultures, and religions have to live together. Thus, the education should reveal the major prejudice against this or that race and ground it’s being mistaken in its essence. The present paper is one of the steps that are necessary in order to achieve this goal. This paper will focus on the dismantling of the prejudice that can be met in our society against people from Brazil.
Assumptions
Brazil is a country that has few stereotypes connected with it. The nation has never demonstrated any sins or characteristic features that allow people to form any kind of prejudice. Brazilians are famous as skillful and talented soccer players, successful sportsmen, gifted movie directors, etc. However, stereotyping is the universal phenomenon that is innate in the psychology of every human being, and certain people have formed stereotypes against Brazilians (Meyers, 2006). The major one of them is that Brazilians are criminals, and communication with them is dangerous for people as far as rates of crime in Brazil are higher than in the majority of the countries of the world. Thus, the stereotype that I wanted to dismantle was that Brazilians are dangerous because the majority of them are criminals who murder people, steal kids, and busy themselves with burglary.
Appropriateness of the Event
To achieve the above-stated goal, I made out a plan to visit a multicultural event that was to take place in our city. It was rather difficult to find such a kind of event in our city because it is not large, but finally, I managed to find the link to the international student conference that was to take place on Monday, October 20th, in our city. The internet site that was advertising this event is busy with the overcoming of the interracial prejudice in the multicultural society of today. That is why I am strongly convinced that the conference of my choice is the appropriate event that is helpful for reaching my goal. The very conference gathered numerous students from all over the world, and Brazil, as the fifth largest country in the world according to its territory, could not be ignored by the organizers of the event. The participation of Brazilian students was a nice chance for me to obtain information about modern Brazil directly from the objective and non-biased youth.
Event Description
The very conference started as the celebrated meeting of all its participants in the conference hall of the University and was followed by the division of students into respective groups according to the spheres of their interest, including geopolitics, economy, crime, and means to fight it, etc. The total number of students at the conference amounted to 2 500 persons, and thus it was impossible to place them all in one class. This is what the division into groups was used, and as I was interested in the issues of crime in Brazil, I joined the latter group. Students from Brazil were rather active participants of the discussion that took place in their group. As enthusiastic and young people, they displayed a readiness to share the information they had and hoped that their participation in the event would help in overcoming the crime and one of the major stereotypes about their country.
Reflection
Having the aim of clearing out the stereotypes and attempting to dismantle the prejudice against Brazilians, I asked one of the students from the Brazilian delegation to take several minutes of his time in order to answer my questions on this issue. The student, whose name is not revealed for privacy policy purposes, agreed at once after coming to know the purpose of the interview. From his answers to my questions and from his own remarks, it became evident to me that criminality in Brazil is not much harder than in many other countries. The student agreed that it is one of the major issues of the Brazilian society and cause of prejudice against it, but insisted on the point that the prejudice does not reflect the overall picture of the society. Brazilians, according to him, are rather friendly and peaceful people who are fond of sports and life, and the situation with a crime is the problem that is typical of any society.
Theoretical Integration
As the information was obtained, I had the field for thinking as the theoretical data and statistics I had contradicted the answers of the student. According to the Brazilian government, more than 40 000 people are annually murdered in the streets of Brazil in the 2000s, and this figure is on the rise from year to year. However, the communication with this particular student and his colleagues from the Brazilian delegation left no impression of danger about these people. As a student studying psychology, I have a considerable understanding of human motivations and can thus conclude that the stereotype, although built on the specific data, is the result of human imagination and the ability to exaggerate facts. Crime is typical of any society, and its presence in Brazil is not enough reason to judge all Brazilians as criminals.
Discussion
After the information necessary for this paper was obtained and the theoretical integration thereof was carried out, the need to discuss the data of the interview and research arose. On the one hand, it can not be denied that Brazilian society is worldwide notorious for the high rates of crime. It is also evident that this problem demands serious consideration and the development of means for its overcoming. As a result, the Brazilian government takes respective measures in order to reduce crime rates and introduces the Brazilian National Special Force, National Public Security Force, and other bodies to fight crime in Brazil. On the other hand, statistical data and governmental programs are not the reasons to stereotype all Brazilians as criminals because every society has its problems, and Brazilian society is not an exception. Moreover, young Brazilians with whom I could communicate display their deep understanding of the issue and readiness to fight it. Thus, I think that stereotyping is completely mistaken in relation to Brazilian people.
Summary
To sum up the findings of the interview with the representative of Brazilian culture, it is necessary to say that the prejudice against Brazilians as criminals turned out to be completely mistaken, as well as the majority of the stereotypes people, have in respect of other nations. I managed to carry out the interview with the Brazilian student who presented the most updated and objective information about crime in his country. Based on the information I already had on Brazil and on the answers given by my respondent, I can state that Brazilian society understands the issue of crime as one of its major issues and does everything to overcome it. Nevertheless, stereotype against Brazilians has no grounds and is mistaken.
References
Myers, D. (2006). Social Psychology. McGraw Hill Higher Education; 9th edition.