As I was growing up, my mother spent an almost inordinate amount of time worried about my deportment. She was always concerned about my appearance, how I spoke, and generally, how I carried myself. When I would protest, she always gave the same reason. She would say, “You are judged not so much by who or what you are, but who or what people perceive you to be.”
Now that I’ve gotten older, I know that she was perhaps correct to a point. But she never covered how I should respond if no matter how fine my appearance, no matter how well I spoke, and no matter how well I carried myself, I was still defined by a stereotype.
What does this country see when they look at me?
2 comments:
Hi
Do you believe that there is a smidgen of truth to every stereotype and do you have them about other races? Do yow believe that to some extent we are all prejudice, not racist, but prejudice?
Kim,
I do believe you are right. We all hold some stereotype or another about "others." However, the question then becomes, do we have the resources to widely promulgate these stereotypes as is done here to the detriment of the group we hold stereotype of?
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