What is Stereotype Threat?

Understanding Stereotype Threat

Stereotype threat refers to being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group.
Research has shown that the consequences of stereotype threat extend beyond underachievement on academic tasks. For example, it can lead to self-handicapping strategies, such as reduced practice time for a task, and to reduced sense of belonging to the stereotyped domain.
Research has also shown that stereotype threat can harm the academic performance of any individual for whom the situation invokes a stereotype-based expectation of poor performance.
Based on studies, stereotype threat has affected the performance and advancement of black ethnic minority more so than any other ethnicities.

Fortunately, I have lived most of my life in San Francisco, which I consider being one of the most liberal and culturally diverse city in the world. Thus, I have seen and experienced less stereotype than other people. Stereotype will never go away and will continue to exist, but I think that the culture in San Francisco is unique in that it feels like a cultural melting pot, where a large percentage of the city's population are immigrants from countries around the world. As a result, stereotype is less overt and visible as compared to other cities.
Growing up, I went to a high school that was very mixed and multi-cultural. For my education, I went to UC Berkeley for my undergraduate, which was also very cultural diverse and has an affirmative action policy to help the advancement of underprivileged and under represented minorities. Affirmative action is one of the many approaches to combat the effects of stereotype threat.
Being a minority myself, you would think that I would have experienced the effects of stereotype threat, but I will admit that I have been lucky growing up in a cultural diverse and accepted city, such as San Francisco, and going to a college such as UC Berkeley that is equally cultural diverse and for the most part, people are culturally accepted.

Personally and fortunately, I am totally color blind in regards to race, color, and ethnicity. I have good friends across all ethnic, cultural, and religious background. In fact, some of my best friends are black/African American, Latino, and Pakistanian.
In my opinion, the best way to combat stereotype threat is to be non judgmental and threat everyone the same regardless of their race, culture, or religion. At the end of the day, people are people and if you personally treat everyone the same, you are doing your job in society to combat stereotype threat.