A long time ago, I was working as a teacher in a juvenile
detention center. One of the “guards” or better known as attendants asked me if
I was prejudiced.
She, and most of the incarnated boys in that group, were
African American. I grew up with many African Americans. When I was little, my
father even dragged me along to the Civil Rights Movement’s March on
Washington. I felt comfortable in this type of ethnic population and so instead
of a measured response, I cracked a joke about how after meeting some of the
inmates, I might become prejudiced.
Not a good move. People can have very sensitive skins, pun
intended (and another fine example of engaging my mouth before engaging my
brain). And word quickly went through the population that I was prejudiced.
But prejudice also means to pre-judge something. For
example, if you put seafood in front of me, I won’t eat it. I won’t even taste
it. The smell of fish turns my stomach. And so I pre judge all seafood. And
sometimes when we look at people, even people we like, we make assumptions that
can be wildly inaccurate.
I’d like to share the story of one such young lady who I was
privileged to meet when I was a student teacher. She spoke with a lisp. She was
frequently out from school from illness. She was rather docile and always did
her homework (one assumes with the help of very supportive parents). But she
was obviously a person with mild Downs Syndrome – retarded to use a word that
is no longer politically correct.
Yet she managed to somehow make it into a 9th
grade class. It wasn’t a special ed class, but rather a special needs class. We
had children who were involved with drugs and sex, a couple of transfers from
urban school districts who were smart but way behind and a few immigrants whose
parents worked at the local state university and needed to be immersed in
English.
One of the assignments for the entire grade was to do a
newspaper report on India. That wasn’t realistic for this class. So, at my
suggestion, we did a television show.
And one of this young woman’s assignments was to create two
commercials for cotton and tea. This young woman provided the scripts for two
incredible commercials. The first was a “slice of life” commercial for tea
where a woman came home from work and her sister shared the secret of remaining
calm, thinking things over while having a nice glass of sweet tea (and this
class was in the northeast at a time when few had ever heard of sweet tea).
The other was a positioning commercial, showing many
different fashions made from cotton with the catch line: “Pure cotton from
India…The best thing to put on your body.”
Now you have to understand that before I began teaching, I
wrote advertising copy for many years. This was way more than good work. This
was professional grade stuff. I was stunned. Just to confirm my own judgment, I
sent the copy over to a creative director at one of the largest ad agencies in
the world. She taught copywriting at NYU and told me this would rate an “A” in
her course.
My supervising teacher brought the girl’s parents in. They
said they did little to help her with this, or any, homework. She was given a
number of tests. Her IQ was in the 120s and another test predicted she would
score very high on college SATs.
In other words, she was a bright, even brilliant, kid who
happened to have a speech problem and was frequently ill. She wasn’t retarded
at all, nor did she have a trace of Downs Syndrome.
The entire school system pre judged her. And nearly ruined some incredible
potential.
So what’s the point? I just went through a number of my
friends on Facebook and realized I had “labeled” a number of them. A few are
extreme liberals; others are radical, gun toting conservatives. One was an
alcoholic while several others were very lonely. Yet I realized I haven’t much
of a clue as to whom they are beyond my labels. And I think most of us are like
that.
I think it’s time to take another look at ourselves, both as
individuals and as groups and examine if we are really judging people properly,
or if we should be even judging at all. Are you listening oh members of
Congress? Of course not, you’ve already judged me as a cranky old senior
citizen whose main concern is my Social Security entitlements. And you may even
be right!
