Stereotype vs. Discrimination vs. Prejudice

These three words can be misread and misunderstood easily without proper knowledge. People often confuse stereotypes with discrimination, or prejudice with stereotype, or discrimination with prejudice. Yeah, I do admit that it can be quite confusing, so here's a brief summary for you to understand the three concepts properly.


Stereotype = our thoughts

Prejudice = our feelings

Discrimination = our treatments/actions

Now here's how I view these three. I see it as a chain. If I let my thoughts conquer me, my feelings will be affected; and if I let my feelings conquer me, my actions will be the result of it. So what I'm trying to say is, stereotyping and even having prejudice is okay, as long as you KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

However, do not let it overcome your mind and your emotions, because if you lose control, it will lead to discrimination; and that's BAD. Everyone has his or her own stereotypes, but not everyone will discriminate because of it. Stereotyping doesn't make you an evil human being; it just makes you human. RESPECT is very important and we must always give people the benefit of the doubt because sometimes, they'll turn out to be completely different, but since you already have a specific mindset, you would not be able to see it.

We will divide this part into two. The first part is a story shared by Ima on her experience stereotyping of others and my "twin" (Belle) will share her own story on being stereotyped.




Ima's story
Yes, like any other walks on this earth, I have had several stereotype moments on people, past and present. But I still respect them. So let me share one story that you might be able to relate to. Over the past years, I have had this stereotype on people who speak good English. My stereotype was that people who are good at conversing in English are terrible in their hometown dialect. For example; MYSELF. I was born in Kelantan and I can say I'm good in English. But, I cannot speak in my Kelantanese dialect.

*For those who don't know, Kelantan is a state in Malaysia and is located in the northeast of the Peninsular Malaysia. The Kelantanese dialect is one of the well known dialects in Malaysia because of how different it is to the standard Malay language in terms of speaking.

photo credit to google images
To me, you can either be good in English and bad at your own dialect, OR speak good dialect but bad in English. You can't have both; that WAS my theory. Until one day, I entered IIUM (International Islamic University Malaysia), and met this one girl who was unique. She spoke in English the day we met. She 's my classmate and my friend. I later found out she was from Kelantan. I was shocked of course, because well...she kinda broke my theory. BUT that did not stop me from being friends with her. THE END. It's a simple story but what I’ve learned from it has shaped my way of thinking.
I had my stereotype, I had some prejudice, but I certainly DO NOT DISCRIMINATE.