More than Hot Air.

Blondes are subject to jokes. It's a simple fact. Because we have light skin pigmentation, and the alleles in our genes match up in a certain way, we are not as smart as the rest of the world. Unfair much?!

I may not be a rocket scientist, but because I choose to keep my hair in a lighter shade, I am automatically labeled as the dumb blond. Yes, I may have my ditzy moments, but I can guaruntee that so to red heads, brunettes and people with black hair. It's not very fair.

It blows my mind how easily stereotypes are created. From blonde hair equaling a lack of intelligence to dark skin equaling a rise in crime rate. Our world is so incredibly judgemental and it breaks my heart.

I just moved from my quiet little town in Oregon, to a larger scaled city in Ohio. Back home in OR, the most racial diversity we saw was the migrant hispanic workers and their families. Aside from that it was mostly a Caucasian based community. I felt safe in my city, safe in my school, safe with my friends. Then my family was uprooted after my freshman year in college to a state 2500 miles away from the place I had called home for the last 16 years of my life. Not only were were moved across the country but we were moved into a completely new cultural center. Instead of having a single racial group surrounding our middle class Caucasian American family, we had TONS of different types of people. I thought to myself, this is so exciting! Tons of people from different backgrounds in one city, there's got to be so much going on in this town. As I was driving around looking for the bank, I ended up in a lower income side of town. That was something I thought I had witnessed back home, until I drove into a neighborhood about two blocks from the bank. My mom and I were awe-struck at the poverty in this neighborhood, looking around to see boarded up windows and cars that were missing windows. I won't lie; I was kind of scared. Scared enough to slowly reach for the lock button on the car door. I had never seen it that bad in real life.
We pulled up to the bank. It was the first of the month so EVERYONE was at the bank, cashing their pay check or paying off bills. I was apalled at my reaction. I double checked to make sure the doors were locked because there were lower class people all over the bank parking lot, blasting rap music from their cars as if this was the local hangout. I thought, I don't want to stay in the car all by myself, I've seen too many thriller movies where the young girl gets taken from the car by the gangsters in the parking lot. It was the most irrational thought I've ever had, and instantly I was ashamed of my judgement.

The point I'm trying to get across is that we can't control how quickly our minds move from one thought to another. We can judge people just as unconsciously as taking a deep breath. The point is not to act on the judgements we make on people. Whether we assume that the blond girl is ditzy, or assume that the man with baggy jeans will steal you from inside your locked car. Acting on the judgements is what gets people in trouble, not the judgements themselves.

<3 S