Stereotyping is a prominent word in our society. It is a
word that people are scared to even utter, let alone be categorized by it. But,
the truth of the matter is that everyone stereotypes; oftentimes it is
subconscious. It has been proven on multiple occasions that even people who are
from diverse cultures will have natural tendencies to categorize someone just
because of the color of their skin or the way they dress. And I’m going to be
honest with you. I catch myself falling into these stereotypical tendencies
regularly.
As a writing consultant at a very diverse university, I
encounter people from all walks of life on a regular basis. I’ve had clients
that are everything from non-traditional students with PTSD to 17 year old
prodigies applying to med-school; I feel like I’ve seen it all. In many
instances, however, I find myself subconsciously categorizing clients before
I’ve even said hello. I take a quick look at them and determine how the session
will go, simply based on their looks. And it is in these cases that I am always
proved wrong. Each one of these clients I stereotyped prove my expectations
wrong, making me question my reasoning for stereotyping said client to begin
with.
One client in particular has caused me to be more conscious
of my stereotypical tendencies. This young man looked like he was straight off
a beach in California. He had short, bleach-blonde hair that had been formed
into short dreadlocks about an inch long. He was excessively tan and wore extremely
bright colors. His entry survey was very limited and was grammatically “all
over the place”. Because of his attire, I instantly assumed that his session would be as messy and scatter-brained as his entry survey was, as
opposed to one an intelligent person who attends a Tier 1 university typically has.
I was wrong.
Not only was he an insanely intellectual person, he was
working on something so human and so amazing that I cried. He was creating a
scholarship for children who have a parent with the same terminal brain cancer
his mom had to help with the financial burden of college. If that wasn’t
already amazing, he didn’t come into our writing center with plans to put this together; he already had a lawyer to help with this
and donors lined up. He was amazing. The way he presented himself had nothing
to do with his intellectual ability.
This young man taught me how natural stereotyping is, and he
taught me how to learn from it. I learned that you shouldn’t feel ashamed when
you catch yourself stereotyping a client. Just the fact that you caught it
shows it was unintentional. Furthermore, I learned how to apply this
realization to my job as a writing consultant. We should practice ways of how
to not let these stereotypes create
expectations for our sessions because, by failing to address our natural
tendencies, we are ultimately doing a disservice to our well-deserving clients.
