If you are wondering whether you could help eradicate stereotypes and prejudices in your everyday life and whether it would be hard, the answer is YES, you can do it, and NO, it isn’t hard to achieve. A good start is to stop pretending we do not have any stereotypes and make young people realize they have them. We all hold stereotypes and prejudices and, whether we like it or not, they impact our own lives and lives of the other people. Therefore, it is good to be aware of them and make other people realize they do have them. There is nothing wrong about it.
The next step is to recognize stereotypes and prejudice in our close surrounding – when having a conversation among friends, when discussing something with other people, when watching TV or movies. It is sometimes hard to react, especially when we need to do it in a group of friends. When working with young people, it is useful to do some activities that would help them recognize stereotypes and prejudices around them.
There is also a 3-step strategy we can use in our personal life and educate young people about it when we are witnessing a racist comment: STOP (I do not understand why you said it, ASK (what are you saying this? What makes you think so?), EDUCATE (tell the person it is racist or sexist and explain why). You can also ask other people around if they hold the same opinion. In such a situation, many people immediately realize it was wrong.
