And So It Goes

The other day, someone asked me what it was really like dealing with stereotypes in today’s society. A strange question, I thought. Considering that the person who asked me was a White Anglo Saxon who said he never experienced stereotypes (uh..ok), I decided to answer him by relaying an incident to him that happened just the other morning.

While I walking to the subway, there was a woman who was on the same sidewalk as I was walking. She had her pocketbook on her left shoulder. As I walked closer to her, she turned around to see who was making noise behind her. When she saw it was me, she quickly switched the pocketbook to her right shoulder. As I passed her, I made no eye contact with her. I kept right on walking, since I was running a little late & wanted to get the next train. However, when I had passed to about 10 feet in front of her, I quickly looked back to play a hunch. “I’ll bet she switched the pocketbook back to her left shoulder”, I thought to myself. I was right. The switch happened when I had put sufficient distance between myself & her.

Now, before you come to the conclusion that the lady was White, she was not. She was Latino. Stereotypes & racism are restricted to the White community, despite the stereotype...and so it goes.