Stereotyped

There are numerous stereotypes based on age, gender, race etc. The reason why I'm writing about this type of topic is because something was said, well, something was said a few times to me regarding my race. I'm going to tell a little of my background, I grew up in the inner city where there was drugs, gangs and prostitution down the street from my house. I even went to a really bad high school, they had mental detectors there everyday. The gang members would go into random classes and sit and the teachers would be too scared to say anything.

So I grew up the opposite of a lot of my friends, I would say that I spoke with articulation, I was reserved and quiet. A lot of my friends were loud, rude, ignorant and always wanting to start some trouble. Some of my friends would talk slang that I wouldn't understand. Even being around people with different cultures never made me think of them as those stereotypes. I actually like being around people of different cultural backgrounds because I can learn from them, learn their language, food and heritage.

I was always accepting of people because I always wanted to be accepted by society. Long story short, I was at work and I was asking a co-worker (A) a question, "hey are you okay?" I asked that because he was extra silly today. The other co-worker (B) jumped in and said, "he is crunk" I asked, "what is crunk?" he said, "are you serious?" of course I said, "yes I'm serious". This co-worker (B) said, "I'm not telling you, you have to be on the cool people's list" I ask, can you give me a hint?" he proceed to add me to the IM chat with another co-worker (C) that tends to joke around a little too much. (sorry about the letters I can't display real people's names).

Co-worker (B) told co-worker (C) that I didn't know what the word means, and co-worker (C) ask me, "are you sure you are black?" it struck a nerve with me because he assumed I supposed to know what that word means because quote, I'm black! I didn't know I supposed to know every slang word in the universe because the color of my skin, how naive of me. This isn't the first time this happened, I was called "white" by a so called friend of mine because I had some articulation in my conversation with him.

Also another so called friend was really shocked because I didn't speak slang or Ebonics. He assumed that since I grew up in the inner city I supposed to be ghetto and talk slang all the time. It's already hard enough to make a living in this economy let alone being judged on the color of my skin and be put into this huge stereotype.

Sure stereotype will probably never go away but come on, don't expect people to be the same, there are no two people that are exactly the same.