Before I dig deep into this post mentioning the time when I was stereotyped, it's important to understand what basically is a stereotype and what are the different sorts of stereotypes that people get to face on daily basis.
STEREOTYPE
To keep it as simple as possible, stereotype is an assumption that one alread makes about a person or a group of people without even getting to know them. It's a generalization of things which are often turned negative. For example, if a person of a community does something wrong, the whole community gets stereotyped of being wrong. This is unfortunately very common in our society these days.
There are different types of stereotypes, for example:
Racial Stereotype
Cultural Stereotype
Religious Stereotypes
Gender Stereotypes etc
THE TIME I WAS STEREOTYPED
I moved to Saudi Arabia in very early stages of my life. My father got a really esteemed job as a doctor in one of the best hospitals in KSA. I was a child back then. My father had landed a really good job as a consultant. He had a lot of respect there and due to him whenever I used to visit his hospital, I was treated with utmost respect as well
As a child, I was a football fanatic. All my childhood I had played football and when i was moving to Saudia, I already knew the craze they had there for football.
I immediately started to look for places I could play football in. I started to head out of my home to nearby small grounds and saw kids there playing football under the floodlights. I was immediately hooked to the environment as unfortunately there were no such places like these in Pakistan.
I built some courage inside me and approached the kids with enthusiasm and a bright smile expecting that I'd be welcomed. But to my surprise, I was immediately dejected and rejected just because I was a Pakistani. This was a huge shock to me. I was stereotyped of being illiterate and not meeting their standards. This broke down my morale. I mean, ponder over it. A 13-14 year old kid gets isolated by children of his age just because he belongs to a specific country.
Some of those kids were Saudis while some were Indians as well. The Indian kids didn't want anything from me as I am a Pakistani and apparently they hate my country. I was devastated.
At that time, I couldn't understand such difficult things, all I wanted was to play football and wanted to have that one chance. Thank God, I got a chance. I was at the sideline, when a ball rolled towards me. I passed it back and the playwr who was on the field was impressed by my precision. He immediately invited me for the next game. The rest is history. I was a starter in all the coming matches after that incident.
Now, that I look back at these events, I have realized that people will assume the worst about you even without getting to know you a bit. This is very unfortunate and this is something that happens on daily basis. Maybe because we, human beings hate uncertainty so much that we will choose negativity instead of being uncertain
One more thing is that you will have to proove yourself if you want to be at a good place. This world doesn't care about you untill and unless you're really good at something and you prove that you're the best.
WHO IS HUZAIFANAVEED?
huzaifanaveed hails from Pakistan, who is an aspiring dentist, studying in one of the top notch universities of Pakistan, Jinnah Sindh Medical University.
he loves interacting with new people, making new friends and traveling the world, but most importantly he loves to make a change in this world through his actions and his words. He's an entrepreneur and a philanthropist who's been actively working with different Charitable Organizations in Pakistan.
His goal on Hive is similar, ie, to make a difference. He's here to mark his presence and he'll do it through his words. So lets be a part of his journey and show him support through comments, upvotes and reblogs.
