Thursday, August 9, 2007

The Faces in Your Crowd

Please note: Images illustrating this post were inspired by the recent challenge over at Round Robin Photo Challenges, which was mannequins! I thought I could combine this challenge with a post I was writing yesterday, so I set out with the specific goal of finding mannequins to represent different ethnicities. This was no easy task, because:

1) Most mannequins at the local mall are white.
2) Most mannequins at the local mall do not even have heads. I’ve come to the conclusion that mannequins with heads must be more expensive than those without. Those with realistic hair must cost an arm and a leg, or several of each as evidenced by the number of mannequins sans limbs.

Anyway, on to the post…

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They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. - Andy Warhol

I watched a few minutes of a show on the Discovery Channel the other night about the prison system in the U.S. I didn’t watch the whole thing; it really wasn’t my kind of show. I tend to steer more toward history, science and nature shows, sometimes travel. Generally not toward anything that I might find disturbing, like plastic surgery or high tech weapons or The Simple Life.

The prison system seems like a nightmarish underworld that I would find frightening enough to induce cold sweats in the middle of the night. I turned the channel.

But this snippet I watched as I perused the Tuesday night prime-time offerings got me thinking...

They were discussing prison gangs and how prisoners “stick to their own” while incarcerated, meaning there’s a white gang, a black gang, an Hispanic gang, an Asian gang, etc. No one crosses racial lines; to do so is a death sentence, viewed as something akin to treason.

I was wondering how much that relates to our society in general. Do we all, for the most part, stick to our own? And when we don’t, isn't it viewed (by some) as an act of betrayal? Aren’t things said like “he’s trying to act black” or “she thinks she’s white”? Isn’t interracial marriage viewed by some as a rejection of one’s own race, culture, or heritage?

I went to a VERY white high school. I don’t know if even 10% of the student body represented minorities. It was probably less. So race wasn’t really an issue in my school, for the simple fact that the handful of Asian kids, black kids, Indian kids and Hispanic kids was just kind of rolled in with the rest of them. There were no factions in the cafeteria or anything like that.

(But oh, the gay kid suffered some despicable abuse at the hands of some nasty low-life bullies. That’s a whole other story.)

My high school boyfriend went to a different school, where his three best friends consisted of two black kids and a Puerto Rican kid. Even the teachers at this respected Catholic institution, which was in a very diverse area, called him a “whigger” for keeping such company. This was an obvious display of disloyalty to them, a blatant slap in the face of his white brethren. They expected him to stick to his own.

So how is it at school nowadays?

Mandy tells me a lot about her new high school and the kids she hangs out with. I'm familiar with all the names, even if I don’t know all of the faces yet.

When she received her yearbook a few weeks ago, I asked her to show me all the new friends I’d been hearing about this year. We sat together on her bed as she flipped excitedly through the pages, pointing out the nice mix of kids that are her friends and telling me stories about each one.

She hadn’t previously mentioned to me that so-and-so was black or so-and-so was Hispanic. She had never classified anyone this past year as being her “Asian friend” either. The stories she told me were just about her friends, no qualifiers necessary. As it should be.

She had mentioned to me once, though, that one of her friends is gay.

“Does anyone know that he’s gay?” I asked.

“Yeah, pretty much everyone. He doesn’t, like, hide it or anything.”

“Do the kids bother him about it at all?”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Well, I was just wondering if they teased him at all about being gay.”

“Why would they?”

I told her a little bit about my high school friend and the appalling treatment he endured.

“That’s horrible!” she said. “No one does anything like that.”

“Well that’s good!”

“People just are who they are, y’know?”

Exactly.

But I wonder about us adults. Do we stick to our own? If you flip through your address book, or your buddy list, or the contact list in your cell phone, what do you see?

And if you are segregated in your social circle, do you think it has anything to do with the environment you grew up in, or your neighborhood, or the place you work? Do you think we could be hard-wired to seek out what is familiar to us? Or maybe we just behave as we were taught, or shown by the example set for us by our parents.

I know mine is a diverse crowd, more so than that of my parents. And it seems that Mandy is blind to the color barriers that divided the generations before us.

I think change starts at home.

"If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities… your children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out." - Marian Wright Edelman

20 comments:

Jim Thomsen said...

I'm pretty prejudiced against white people.

Seriously, I'm another of the live-and-let-live crowd, for the most part ... BUT ... in school, I was just as insecure as everybody else, and the easiest and bluntest way I knew to build myself up was to seek out the weaknesses of other (or perceived weaknesses) and tear them down.

Shitty, I know ... but that's how it was in the 1970s. Just a five-day-a-week, eight-hour-long recasting of "Lord Of The Flies." Some days I was Jack, some days I was Piggy, some days I was Ralph.

I'm glad kids — at least at your daughter's school — have a more enlightened worldview and this a wider disposition toward tolerance. That's probably one of the positive side effects of media oversaturation.

MyMaracas said...

Great photos and excellent commentary. Your daughter is a very special young lady.

I have a kid in high school, and here it's as brutal as ever. Kids are still branded as "in" or "out" and are targeted for humiliation. The most important things seem to be financial status, athletic performance, and physical beauty. Conformity is highly prized, and if you can't be "in" then plan B is to become invisible.

Race and homosexuality do seem to be pretty much nonissues now, so there has been some progress over the years. But God help the Goths and the fat kids.

katie eggeman said...

I think High School will always be the same. It was the same in the 60's the 80's when my kids were going and the present. We have so much Diversity in the US and it seems that each generation that comes up is just a little more tolerant.

Travis Cody said...

I think that I am fortunate that when my father walked out, he took the attitude of a bigot with him. That allowed me to learn tolerance from my mom.

And so I mixed with any kids in high school, whatever their background or activities.

Of course I'm not perfect. But I am tolerant.

Scott from Oregon said...

bigotry is a child of fear and ignorance.

Glamourpuss said...

I think we do tend to seek out 'like', but I don't always think that means 'same colour as' - especially these days. I think it's also natural for us to define an 'other', something outside our society that we are consciously 'not like' - in the past, I think that often was those from different ethnicities or of different sexuality, but these days, over here certainly, it's illegal immigrants, Islamic terrorists, that sort of thing.

Your daughter's attitude is admirable, and gives one hope for the future.

Puss

Lizza said...

Those headless mannequins are quite funny. We have them here too.

Glad to know that race doesn't seem to be an issue for selecting friends there nowadays. But I think we still stick to someone who's like us in some way.

CS said...

I went to a county high shcool in Georgia that was about 60/40 white/black. No other races of any kind until one Asian boy moved in. The school was integrated, sort of, but some of us were more inclined to have friends form both sets of kids. Now that I live here in East Tennessee, it boggles my mind how very white it is.

Tammie Jean said...

Hi Ninja! Well it sounds as if you've gained some perspective on your high school days. Some people carry that "cut others down to build yourself up" mentality well into adulthood.


Hi Vicki! Sounds like you're describing the school my daughter used to go to. It was in a smaller school district, and those spoiled kids had very elitist attitudes. Although there are negatives to being in a large district, my daughter says one of the positives is that there are just to many kids for any of them to be branded "popular".


Hi Bankerchick! I agree that each generation seems a little more tolerant than the last. But yes, high school will always be a crucible of teenage social interaction.


Hi Travis! I think parents have the most influence on our social ideas and the way we treat others in general. Well, at least until we become teenagers, but hopefully they've made a good impression by then! Kudos to your mom :)


Hi Scott! Yes, I agree - well said!


Hi Glamourpuss! Good points! We do seek "like" companions, but our definition of "not like" has changed.
We probably, in general, have defined "not like" similarly here in the US, but I think the danger is when people over-generalize their definitions and are prejudiced against entire groups of people.


Hi Lizza! Yes I agree - like us in some way, or at least someone we feel we can relate to.


Hi CS! The district I used to live in was very white too. So white, in fact that Mandy came home from elementary school after an MLK Jr lesson and asked, "Do I have any black friends?" "Well, not in your school, but you're probably the only white kid in your entire Tae Kwon Do class, and you have lots of friends there." "Oh yeah! Cool."

Erica Ann Putis said...

I am always amazed at how beautiful the mannequins are at Victoria's Secret. Not sure if they have different races or not thought. Another great post. :)

Tammie Jean said...

Hi Erica! I actually checked them out, and they were all white. They were pretty hot though ;)

Carly said...

Hi Tammie Jean :)

Darlin... this was a fabulous entry. The mannequins went perfect with what you wrote. It was thought provoking to say the least. Bravo my dear. Thank you so very much for posting.

Always, Carly

LZ Blogger said...

Tammie Jean ~ I personally think that Marian Wright Edelman "hit the nail on the head!" ~ jb///

Tammie Jean said...

Hi Carly! Thanks so much!Mannequins made such an interesting subject, one I hadn't considered before. And then I saw such parallels to the train of thought I was already riding...


Hi JB! Yes, I think she did too. Parents have the greatest influence over how their children behave and what they believe.

Janet said...

My social circle is mostly white, but that's only because there really aren't alot of black folks in my area. Most of the folks I met that aren't white were from when I worked at an Air Force base. After living on an air force base overseas for 3 years and in VA for 1.5 years, when I moved back to MA, I was shocked by the lack of color in a never ending stream of white faces.

Love that last picture of the legs up in the air :-) Thanks for visiting!

Tammie Jean said...

Hi Janet! The makeup of our social circles can certainly be a product of our environment. As I said, my high school was almost entirely white, so my friends weren't a diverse crowd at all back then.
And thanks - I liked those legs too! I think I found them at Baby Gap.

Kiyotoe said...

great post TJ. I don't think we give the kids these days enough credit. We get on their cases about everything they do wrong but there are a lot of good things about the young generations too.

For example, the whole "acceptance" of other kinds of people is big. We're so diverse as a country that it only makes sense for our children to grow up liking and appreciating each other. UNLESS they're taught otherwise at home.

In my high school race was never really an "issue" because it was pretty even, something like 52-48 so almost down the middle. But it was classic "Breakfast Club" where people were discriminated against based on their "crowd". I am ashamed to admit that as a jock, I did my share of shady stuff. But I've grown up and now and i bet some of those "nerdy" kids i bothered are probably making three times my salary.

Tammie Jean said...

Hi Kiyotoe! You're right - I hadn't thought about it that way, but the kids today do get a bum rap. And maybe every generation feels that way about the next one - out of control, no respect, lazy, reckless. But I see progress too - always have to look for the good...

The Breakfast Club was one of my favorite movies in high school, but I don't think I was ever part of any crowd back then. I was a "brain" but didn't hang with them, a "jock" but didn't hang with them either. Maybe I was too much of a goody goody to be in a crowd! I wasn't cool.

velvet said...

I think that humans tend to want to sort and classify people by some criteria. The kids are way better about race these days. Still, what's taken its place? Weight? Socio-economic status? Beauty?

I wish that I had a more diverse group of friends, but our area is predominantly white with a handful of Asians thrown in. I miss the diversity of the city.

Tammie Jean said...

Hi Velvet! Oh I agree that kids will always classify each other, and there will probably always be teasing or bullying based on some criteria or another. But I'd like to think that the ignorance of racism is something that is slowly but surely fading away.