Just Another Statistic
I live in South Philadelphia near Broad and Snyder, a place that could possibly pass for a shopping center if someone looked at it hard enough, and its safe to say that I’m so sheltered and used to living here that the rest of the world just seem to be nothing more than a distant blur of faces and voices that I don’t ever have to worry about. To me, all that matters is what’s here, and what’s now. If someone gets shot somewhere in Tallahassee, I may solemnly shake my head and sigh or something, but in general I’m really kind of selfish and self-centered; I could care less about what’s going on outside of my little bubble of life until it happens to me.
There’s a little deli around the corner and down the street from the tall but skinny red brick prism I call a house, and since I’m the baby in the family, whenever my mom and sister want a hoagie or a meatball sandwich, I’m the scapegoat they send to go fetch it for them – even on brisk and windy autumn days like the day they sent me to go pick them up some fried chicken cutlets. While in the comfort of my warm cushioned computer chair, I gave a disgruntled groan as the order came from upstairs to put on my coat and “go to Joey Joe’s,” and I had to drag myself out of our heated living room, and shove myself out into the cold windy November afternoon. A lot of shivers and curses later I was back in heat again – this time in the Italian-owned Deli.
People sometimes tell me that I give the impression that I hate everyone and I have the looks of a Columbine Kid in the making, but the only part of that I agree with is that I’m a tad bit taciturn. Everyday that I went to the cramped quarters of Joey Joe’s and plopped down in one of two hard metal chairs near the counter to wait for my food, I kept my head down and kept quiet because I really didn’t feel like conversing with people I didn’t know; I’m just not that kind of person, and usually the loquacious costumers and butchers would just leave me be and make my food.
However, it was this one day that one of them must have gotten bored and decided to bother me as I kept glancing back and forth from the clock to my watch swearing that the next day I would somehow get my sister to make the expedition to this place instead of me – I didn’t even like deli food. As I was trying to formulate such a plan in my weary head, one of the butchers called to me: “Hey buddy!”
He was a fairly chubby and short man looking to be in his late forty’s or early fifty’s, dressed in all white with a bloody apron on and the faint gray wispy remnants of what I’m sure was once a full set of hair. I looked up and saw his luminously jubilant face smiling at me, and immediately gave an inward sigh. I was all ready to get the “Why do you look so mad all of the time” speech I receive constantly from people who see me for a few times and assume that I’m mentally disturbed, and I was all ready to give back a tolerant string of “I don’t know” like I always do, and that’s honestly all I suspected, even as he mouth was forming the words. Instead I got something like:
“Yo, what up G? Who you like that Jay-Z fella’ or you down with P. Diddy?”
Oh. My. God.
Black people steal. All Australian’s own kangaroo’s; Englishmen are rich and snooty; all of the Japanese know karate; Italians are all just spaghetti-eating mobsters; and any Arabic people you meet are probably going to drive their taxi cabs into City Hall tomorrow afternoon.
Stereotypes.
Don’t act so shocked and appalled as if it’s the most obscure of curses to ever touch your poor virgin ears. You hear them everyday; you see them everywhere. Its probably safe to assume, that its become an intricate part of society woven so deeply and discretely into the everyday going-ons of our world, that we just don’t pick up on them anymore until someone comes along and rips our eyelids off so that we have no choice but to see how people are carelessly categorized each and everyday.
It’s not even always with racial matters all of the time, stereotypes. No, there are dozens of scenarios in which people are categorized each and everyday. Teenagers are supposed to be having wild unprotected sex, be Goths or gangsters, and be on at least five different drugs – oh and don’t forget the loud music; Rappers are expected to be glorified murderers who sing ballads of their crimes for sale; all men are supposed to be perverted freaks with no interest in anything other than sex and how to get it quickly, and the best one of them all: If you’re gay you’re supposed to “act like a woman” and if you’re a lesbian you’re supposed to “act like a man.” Just think of the sheer insanity here – stereotypes within stereotypes!
Here’s an example
of just how ridiculous these generalizations can become: a stereotype conducted
by the
Turn on the television and you see Wanda Sikes making jokes about how “if I’m robbed by a black man I’m liable to loose what I have on today, but if I see a group of white men in suits, I haul ass – I ain’t never been robbed of my future.” Do we truly see all Caucasians as coffee stains to the world, seeking to destroy everyone else? If not, then why do we laugh at it? If so, then why are we making jokes about it? Its rare to watch a comedy show and not hear at least one joke about stereotypes, and yet they are the one’s we laugh at hardest.
Tease nerds because they’re dorky and they’re all Trekkies. Watch out for that girl who’s dressed all in black because she looks like she might jump off a building or shoot up the hallway. Pat that blonde on the head and sympathize for her because she’s probably so dumb she won’t graduate.
Assume the kid sitting in that chair across from the counter listens to rap music, and probably is in some gang terrorizing the neighbors. Presuppose he talks slang and is too unintelligent to talk about more worldly matters like the Presidential election, or the Philadelphia Eagles’ loosing streak.
I
just listened and nodded my head, smiling and forcing chuckles through my
pursed lips, though I had never felt such indefinable rage pulsing through my
body like this in my life. It doesn’t matter if I listen to Puddle of Mudd and
All that matters it that I’m just another face. All that matters is that I’m just another kid. All that matters it that I’m just another statistic.