Sterotypes.

Did you know that widespread genocide occurs every day?

gen·o·cide–noun - the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

In case you didn't catch that, genocide is intentionally KILLING people based on a nationality, race, political view, or culture. You ask, "Oh my goodness, why isn't this on the news?" I agree that it should be.

But of course, these events are not physical. News reporters like physical events because it sells well. People like to see/hear about physical events where people gets hurt. Nobody really bothers to care about how people get hurt psychologically. For example, take these two headlines and ask yourself which one would you be more interested in?

"Cold-blooded killer murders middle school student!"
"Middle School student completely loses self esteem!"

Of course, the first title is more attracting. You say people lose self esteem all the time. Yes it is true. But it is every bit as bad as if a cold-blooded killer murders that person.
Sometimes more powerful then violence can be, destroying someone with words happens every day. Take two quotes from two places for examples of how people recognize that:

"The pen is greater than the sword"
~Edward Bulwer-Lytton

"And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell."
~James 3:6, from the New American Standard Bible,

So you see, words are very powerful. Take for example, if a killer kills someone, he has taken one life. But if someone convinces another person to kill, he has taken both the person he convinced and the people he kills lives, all without directly harming someone.

Now indeed stereotyping in schools is not this dramatic. Nevertheless, you can still destroy someone's past, present, and future for himself and those who love him by making him/her lose confidence in his/herself.

This is truly a shame, as the world would be so much better for it if there were no such thing as stereotypes.

I think that almost no-one would take drugs or underage alcohol if their peers didn't force them to "fit in" or "appear cool". We wouldn't need to act in a way we aren't just to live up to other's expectations.

But the worst is when people are labeled in a group that people will have a tendency to dislike.
These people, though they may actually have nothing wrong with them, will feel that they do, and lose confidence in themselves.
They will probably become withdrawn, afraid to do things, and become failures later in life. Did you know that in people with grades in the top 5% of their school, only 50% of them graduate to college? The rest end up working at a low salary/low intellect job.

Guess what is one of the major factors to blame?
Stereotyping, particularly labels like "Nerd" or "Geek" or "Prep"

Those top 5 academic percent, feeling left out, will in an attempt to fit in, stop trying in school.
The harm done doesn't end there. The person's family will suffer from this, seeing their extremely brilliant child drop out of school and work at Wal-Mart, it may cause a lot of pain as well.

Would you rather be dead, or living in a situation where you know your life was wasted, and you have to suffer it?

It is obvious that stereotyping people, whether it is a 'cool' stereotype or a 'not cool' stereotype, can be every bit as bad as taking a gun and shooting them.

I call upon the youth of America (who still have any decency) to use their influence to save lives.
Eliminate the stupid labels/stereotyping system!

We can prevent people from taking drugs, allow people to reach their full potential, and generally improve the quality of lives. Accept and encourage people instead of forcing people to feel strained.

The power of peer pressure is in your hands.