At one time psychologists believed that only opinionated people used stereotypes. Now the study of unconscious bias is revealing the unsettling truth that we all use stereotypes all the time without knowing it.
In short, we have met the enemy of equality, and the enemy is us.
Each of us has a biased world view because we are all limited to a single camera perspective of our societies. That is we can only see what comes before us, we can only hear what is around us, and we can only read that which is in front of us.
This has led to judge others from our point of view. This could be racial, tribal, sexual, cultural, regional or even familial.
We are like proverbial blind men who went to touch an elephant, to learn what it was like. Each one felt a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compared notes and learnt that they were in complete disagreement.
The story illustrates a range of truths and fallacies; broadly, implying that one’s subjective experience can be true, but that such experience is inherently limited by its failure to account for other truths or a totality of truth.
At various times the parable has provided insight into the relativism, opaqueness or inexpressible nature of truth, the behaviour of experts in fields where there is a deficit or inaccessibility of information, the need for communication, and respect for different perspectives.
Coming back to the subject of bias, I can cite a classic study on race done in America, were psychologists staged an experiment with two photographs that produced a surprising result.
They showed people a photograph of two white men fighting, one unarmed and another holding a knife. Then they showed another photograph, this one of a white man with a knife fighting an unarmed African-American man.
When they asked people to identify the man who was armed in the first picture, most people picked the right one. Yet when they were asked the same question about the second photo, most people — black and white — incorrectly said the black man had the knife.
Even before it was announced that a grand jury had decided not to indict a white police officer in the shooting death of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri, leaders were calling once again for a “national conversation on race.”
Basing on the example above, we can now understand why we have racism without racists since it seems folks in the hoods have been replaced with men in suits.
This bias is extended to the poor, who are mostly likely to be jailed than the rich or famous.
In his amazing book, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice, the author outlines a damning account of the utter failures of the U.S.’s criminal justice system to properly and fairly punish and prevent crime.
The book essentially argues that the criminal justice system does not simply punish the dangerous, but ONLY the dangerous and poor.
By punishing the poor disproportionately, the criminal justice system in America perpetuates poverty and fails to solve the underlying social structures that lead to this class divide in the first place.
This applies to other societies in the world where judicial systems favour the rich and famous over the poor.
Apart from people of colour and the poor, the other hapless group of stereotypes are women who are victims of a myriad of gender stereotypes.
This usually leads to overtly sexualised images of women feeding into violence against them especially in Africa and the Middle East.
These stereotypes present a serious – and increasingly acute – obstacle to the achievement of real gender equality between men and women.
The widespread sexualisation of women’s bodies suggesting their permanent sexual availability and gender-biased customs and traditions contribute to treating women as subordinate members of the family or society.
In the past, the patriarchy was a dominant family model. Through the ages men have been considered to be financial providers, career-focused, assertive and independent, whereas women have been shown as low-position workers, loving wives and mothers, responsible for raising children and doing housework.
Men generally advertise cars, cigarettes, business products or investments, whereas women are shown rather in the commercials with cosmetics and domestic products like washing machines or kitchen utensils.
They are also more likely portrayed in the home environment, unlike men, who are shown outdoors. Another important distinction is the face-ism phenomenon in  the commercials, which consists in showing the entire figure in case of women and close-up shots in case of men.
Stereotypes can also be found in how some regions like Africa are perceived. While early explorers like Stanley Henry Morton have been accused of stereotyping the continent, racial stereotypes about the continent persist.
Among them is that Africa is a country; a stereotype that has seen journalists and even scholars refer to African food or African art or even the African language?
Such individuals have no idea that Africa’s the second largest continent in the world. Instead, they view it as a tiny country with no distinct traditions, cultures or ethnic groups.
The other stereotype is that all Africans look the same which has seen the western media portraying Africans wearing face paint and animal print and all with nearly pitch black skin.
Nationally, tribal stereotypes abound with almost every tribe being given a tribal attribute.
Many of the world’s social problems emanate from our biases , stereotypes and preconceived notions about the other.
It is understandable why our efforts to find lasting global peace, end regional conflicts or minimise quarrels among the people we mix with fail to bear positive results.
The stumbling block of all these attempts is embedded in us. Since we judge others from our perspective.