Stereotype — a bias following a particularly bad experience; an oversimplified opinion produced by overhearing the everyday jargon of the ignorant and/or ill-informed.
Stereotyping encourages people to believe what they have not seen, and instills in them unnecessary mistrust and hostility. I shall clarify and cleanse a couple of these long-held biases held by many Americans today.
Since October is traditionally Polish Heritage Month, let me begin with them. Yes, those same Poles who allegedly charged valiantly on horseback against German Panzer tanks as they rolled across an open field, armed with foot-long sabers during World War II.
The truth: a certain Polish cavalry force, having just slaughtered a German Infantry unit, was attacked by the Panzers who had lumbered in a short while after as backup. Afterward, foreign journalists visiting the battlefield encountered a few dead bodies of the Polish cavalry and added the knowledge of German tanks passing by the area, thus initializing the infamous legend.
In fact, the Polish Air Force had the highest number of kills out of all the Allied countries, including the Royal Air Force (besides also playing a key role in the Battle of Britain).
The “dumb Polak” stereotype was brought about by the arrival of large numbers of uneducated Poles before and after the World Wars (due in part to the most recent partition of their country, which lasted over 100 years). In fact, Poland has produced a variety of important people, including Mikolaj Kopernik, the Polish astronomer who was the forefather of the heliocentric theory (Galileo used his ideas as a basis for his own research), pioneer chemist Marie Curie who discovered the elements polonium and radium, renowned pianist Frederic Chopin, and Generals Thaddeus Kosciuszko and Casimir Pulaski, who greatly assisted this country during the Revolutionary War (Kosciuszko is actually responsible for the creation of West Point).
There is always the supposed American stereotype: freedom and equality for all, world-wide democracy, etc. This readily implies that the United States is justified when it works to instigate peace-keeping, or a safe, fair world environment. Despite this generalized image, this country was founded upon slavery and the murder of 40 million or so Native Americans. Another example which falsifies “freedom-loving America” is the actions taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt (along with Winston Churchill) at the Yalta Conference, held in Iran at the conclusion of World War II, where he sold Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe into the clutches of the villainous, murderous Stalin and the stupidity and irrationality of communism. Where was democracy-promotion then? Furthermore, National Public Radio recently broadcast certain Iraqis who have even specifically stated that life under Saddam Hussein was actually better than the chaos there at present (which we have caused).
What I personally do not understand is why you will probably not find any of this information in a high school history textbook. There is so much we do not know and will never know. Nevertheless, we all should keep striving to discover the “cold, hard truth” about ourselves and the world around us. The point is not to just observe what is on the stage (i.e. what is presented), but to go backstage, and uncover and retain that which cannot be perceived initially. Only then will you really see the “whole picture.”