I like some stereotypes, like the one that assumes I'm smart before I've said anything.
I had to remind myself (Wikipedia) why it is 'stereotype' and 'monotype' . Interesting.
Malcom Gladwell wrote a piece on stereotyping for the New Yorker recently
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/co...s/
060206fa_fact
Lots of discussion on his blog about it too.
I think the perniciousness is how we use the generalization less than whether it flatters or denigrates a group. Having a generalization of a group or an individual and consulting that generalization in interpreting their behavior or deciding your own isn't stereotyping, as a rule. It's how we live, and vital to personal success, if not survival. I think the urge to avoid stereotyping at all costs makes a lot of well meaning people stupid, and I think that's why many critics of political correctness call it Orwellian. So I think it pays to be careful with how we use the word "stereotype." Rather than to employ a generalization per se, to stereotype is to consider that generalization sufficient. It's to disregard or take no interest, in a way, with the stereotyped person in front of you or in what others say in contradiction to the stereotype. To the extent our concept of a human being is the family and friends with whom we're intimate and lead ongoing relationships with ups and downs and turns of plot, stereotyping designates a person as inhuman--hero, devil or "weird bird." Actually I think the affect of stereotyping isn't exactly to disregard or take no interest in new information. I think stereotyping often is more like having allegiance to a scientific paradigm--to carry a frame on which you're intent to make everything fit. And so words like "bias" and "pigeon-holing" crop up around stereotyping. Unfortunately, drawing the parallel to paradigms suggests to me I've stereotyped stereotyping by suggesting it's easy to know where the label applies and where it doesn't. Maybe we have the one word "stereotype" for the kinds of generalizing that scientists and Kuhn have several. "Theories" and "hypotheses" also are generalizations, and their designations distinguish the conviction with which we hold them. Instances of merely hypothesizing that the black teen approaching you is a mugger--and crossing the street on that basis--are ones where people often want to invoke stereotyping, and maybe that's reasonable. But crossing the street "just to be safe" doesn't imply as much dogmatism as voting to convict a defendant because you think "all blacks are liars." So even if the question of "what's stereotyping" come down to politics, how we use and how firmly we hold our generalization matters. As others have said more succinctly.
I wonder if, as a practical matter, this suggestion has some teeth. A number of entrenched stereotypes are problematic - so we reverse them in just the way described. Since the negative ones are already in place the reversal is helpful.
I think you are right, Steve, that positive stereotypes are worse than no stereotypes at all. But since so many negative ones are already in place, perhaps the positive ones would be useful? Of course the flip side is that it might just help perpetuate the negative ones by adding more fuel to the fire, but I think getting some more positive view points on groups of people as part of the mainstream opinion is a critical first step in ultimately breaking down the stereotypes.
Here's a question: What stereotype(s) of whatever group(s) you are in believe applies to yourself?
(What I meant): What stereotypes of whatever group(s) you are in do you believe apply to yourself?
Like all my people, I am of course a fabulous lover. 
However, I often buy retail.
Here's one (as an atheist who likes church music, including carols): The best "church" (of any religion) music has been written by Protestants. But was that programmed into me as child?
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