Stereotypes can be fun, sometimes. When the Veishea riot received international coverage, it must have made good fodder for anyone who thinks what happened was the typical weekend activity for an Iowa town full of corn, country yokels, beer and little else. If only there were cows instead of cars to tip over in Campustown that evening, there would be enough jokes here to revive Jeff Foxworthy’s career.

Nothing wrong with a few laughs. But what is worrisome are those, particularly in our own community, who cling to the stereotype that college students are mainly in the business of drinking, destroying property and having Mommy foot the bill. The riot must have provided a veritable orgy of self-satisfaction for these people who see every instance of a student chewing with his or her mouth open as confirmation of this generation’s lack of morals.

To these people: Get a grip. The number of students who did damage at the riot, even if we wrongly assume that everyone involved was a student, was a tiny minority; 32 arrests were made among the thousands who were there. And even if you condemn the couple thousand bystanders who stood gawking, then you still only have a minority of the nearly 27,000 students who had no part whatsoever in it. For every moron who punched in a window, there are countless students who were innocent of wrongdoing, and when all this blows over, will still work part-time jobs, pay bills and study hard for finals and be respectable members of the community.

It is more important than ever to get away from the habit of blanket stereotyping. Veishea involves and serves a far greater number of students than were guilty of participating in the shameful riots. The discussion on Veishea’s future should not be done with the attitude that students in general are incapable of acting lawfully during Veishea.

But students aren’t the only group in this mess who can be victimized by stereotyping. The police are now accused of being heavy-handed in their riot control, to the point where they Maced and beat people who were actually trying to leave peacefully. These are serious allegations, but even if they pan out, the incidents of misconduct will surely be in the minority compared to what the police did properly that evening, especially in such an extreme situation. How ridiculous it would be if, when examining these allegations, we held on to the stereotype that police officers are nothing more than glorified donut-gobbling Nazi jackboots.

But it would be no more ridiculous than the slander that has been leveled against the entire ISU student body in the aftermath of the riot. Let’s save the righteous condemnation for the few who deserve it and rise above petty stereotyping.