Task Force: Destroy a Stereotype

Congratulations!

You are the Executive Director of a newly founded nonprofit aimed at combating social inequality. Your task is to design a program that destroys a stereotype. 

Why Are We Doing This?

In the United States, there are many stereotypes about race, gender, culture, minority status, and sexuality, among others. These stereotypes can cause mental, emotional, and physical harm to the communities being stereotyped. They propagate generalizations, assumptions, and hate that can lead to people being unfairly targeted, denied access to jobs, education, and resources, and even physical violence. Here we ask you to try and design a program/plan to combat a specific stereotype of your choice. 

Steps:

1. Before you begin, research some information about stereotypes and generalizations about various communities in the United States. 
   1. What kinds of stereotypes exist in the United States?
   2. What are they?
   3. What communities do they target and how? 
2. Then, try to design an entirely new program or plan aimed at combating one stereotype. This can be an educational initiative or curriculum, a video/show/series, a product, and art project, an app or other tech service, etc. You can be as creative as you want to be with the program you design. Just be prepared to answer the following questions: 
   1. What stereotype have you chosen to destroy?
   2. How do you plan on destroying this stereotype? What is your program? 
   3. What will your program entail? How will you go about creating it? 
   4. What will be your program’s mission statement? 
3. Think through the possible objections about your plan to destroy this specific stereotype. 
4. Share with the group and see if you can convince them that your program will best destroy your chosen stereotype. 

Things to Keep in Mind:

• You do not have to come up with an exhaustive list of guidelines for your program. Focus on a few you are prepared to defend.