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Idiom: Tarred with the same brush
It’s often said that you can tell what a person is like by their friends.
Unfortunately, this is not always correct.
Good people can have bad friends.
If that’s the case, it’s unfair for good people to be tarred with the same brush.
If everyone in a particular group is tarred with the same brush, they are all considered to be bad, even though only some of them are.
Stereotypes are used by people all over the world to make immediate decisions about a person’s character.
In Japan, people with tattoos are considered antisocial and, in some cases, outright dangerous.
Some authorities have decided to ban people who have tattoos from beaches to create a ‘family-friendly’ atmosphere.
Hotsprings also have a reputation for denying entry to people with tattoos.
In my opinion, this is taking the easy way out.
Japanese who do this are saying they don’t want to take the time to evaluate a person on their attributes.
They’re saying we’ll tar everyone with the same brush and ban them all because that’s the easiest thing to do.
With the Rugby World Cup coming up in less than 100 days, I’ve heard that a request has been made to have all players conceal their tattoos.
Does that mean Japanese officials or the Japanese public believe all the rugby players with tattoos are gang members or criminals?
If so, then they should not be allowed entry into the country.
This is the conundrum we get ourselves into when we tar everyone with the same brush.
Just as not everyone with a tattoo is a gang member, not all Japanese are friendly people.
That, however, doesn’t mean all Japanese are mean.
If we were to say that, we would tar all Japanese with the same brush.
We must judge people on their actions, not on their appearance.
We should not allow ourselves to look at people with similarities and tar them with the same brush.
If we permit ourselves to make stereotypes and generalizations about people solely based on appearances, we are doing ourselves and society a great disservice.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 68.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.