Topic: Racial stereotyping
One day I was walking around the beach and I heard this lady yelling. So I look over, and I see this white woman harassing a woman of color. There were also two white kids looking at the awful situation, trying to get the tension lower between the two women. The white woman was expressing herself with various rude cuss words against the woman of color, which caused the woman of color to get extremely mad. So I rapidly sprinted to the older-looking kid, the brother, and asked him what started this.
He said, “The white lady came and started it. She thought we were going to get hurt.”
And then I looked at the sister and said, “I don't like seeing people get hurt.”
The white woman then accused the woman of color of kidnapping the kids This made the sister run into her older brother’s arms and tear up. It seemed that the woman of color was being greatly affected by the offensive words the white woman was using. You could easily notice this based on her facial expressions and the tears running down her face.
Once the white woman got tired of arguing, I went up to the woman of color, who was now hugging the kids, and I said, "If you don't mind me asking, what happened?”
The woman said, “Well, I just wanted to take my kids to the beach!”
And in that moment, in my head, I was like, wow, that’s their mom! I felt so bad for them once the woman of color told me that the kids were hers and that the white woman had made false assumptions. So I asked her kindly, “Is there anything you need? Some money? A ride home…?”
And she replied, “Excuse me? Are you assuming that I have no money? No car? How do you think I got my kids and myself here?!”
And in that moment, I realized that I myself was making assumptions about this woman of color! I was assuming she was poor and didn’t have a car to take her kids back home in, just like the white woman earlier had been assuming that she couldn’t have been the mom of two white children.
After I apologized, I got into my car and started to drive home, thinking about what had just happened at the beach. I even started talking to myself about the whole situation: “Why did I even ask that?! She looked like she knew how to take care of her kids.” I abruptly stopped my car at the red light two miles away from my house. “What would have happened if i hadn’t said that…?” Once I got home, I went straight to my room, thinking, “I have never stereotyped people ever in my whole life…” I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. I complained to myself, saying, “What would have happened if I hadn't said anything or done anything?... I don't stereotype people based on their color… Or do I??”
And at that moment, I realized I do stereotype, and once I noticed, I stopped. It felt like the whole world just froze, and I felt every emotion in one, together. I felt horrible about myself for what I did to the woman who, because of me, got stereotyped twice in one day.
