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University of Florida, CJC Online, Foundations of Intercultural Communication MMC5708.
Think back to when you were in the second grade. You were about 7 years old then; Who was your second-grade teacher? You probably remember their name.
Now, what did you have for dinner on Tuesday night? Can’t remember?
"What’s going on in your head that allows you to recall your second-grade teacher’s name in a matter of seconds when you can’t recall Tuesday night’s dinner choice?" (Neuliep & Jandt, 2021, p.172).
I can still remember my very first day of 2nd grade (1982) when our teachers announced that we had two “Black” children entering our class. Growing up in the suburbs of Annapolis, Maryland, my school was not ethnically diverse: no other Black, Hispanic, or Asian students joined our grade until middle school.
The elementary school teachers made this introduction sound like an important event. But looking back, I feel that calling attention to the students in this manner unintentionally influenced the class with negative perceptions.
I don’t recall whether either of the girls displayed a particular “response” to the introduction, but I'm sure that Sharon and Vanessa felt uncomfortable. I remember initially feeling afraid to approach or speak to them. But the whispers and rumors eventually faded as more BIPOC students joined us over the years. By the time we reached high school, the Black, Asian and Hispanic students were considered the “cool crowd,” the trendsetters and the rebel models for language, music, and fashion.
But stereotypes didn't stop after high school. In college (1993), one specific interaction stands out in my memories. It took place in the Ladies' room of UMCP's Tawes Music Hall. A woman entered the bathroom and began questioning me through my stall door. (This is considered odd behavior in the United States, regardless of the topic.) The woman proceeded to ask me how many Asian students I noticed in the 24-hour study hall, what I thought about the Asian work ethic, and whether I thought the behavior was negative?
Being interrogated while using the toilet is not a good starting point for a conversation in the American culture, but I was more aggravated by the line of questioning. Upon leaving the stall, I confronted the woman and asked if she had personally ever visited the study hall at 2 am? Because I had, and students of ALL ethnicities were represented there, not just Asian. I was angered by the woman's assumptions and disgusted by her research process, which I felt encouraged even more stereotyping. I reported her to the building administrators.
Still, my strongest impression of stereotyping might be my own recent experiences.
Music is a huge part of our social identities, and we tend to insinuate things about other people based on their musical preferences. Basic stereotypes might include: “1) people who listen to rap take drugs and are in gangs, 2) country music fans are poor, uneducated, and drink beer, 3) classical music lovers have high IQs and are boring at dinner parties” (Konsor, 2016).
In the music industry, women are likewise stereotyped into specific career paths: singer, violinist, pianist.
Female producer? Music engineer? Songwriter? Trombonist? Saxophonist? Not so much.
Walking down the street in NYC carrying my saxophone, people often approach me saying, “Hey…do YOU play that thing? I don’t believe you can really blow that horn…hahaha…blow, get it?” But who cares about random strangers?
Imagine walking into a Broadway show pit and having other musicians yell, “Hey…there’s a woman in the pit! F-E-M-A-L-E!” It’s exhausting.
All of these experiences added together wears down your patience, making you much more likely to react with anger. “Why are you being so sensitive…it was only a joke! Jeez. Lighten up.” Sound familiar?
My own experiences of being stereotyped are much less personal than racial, religious, or ethnic stereotyping (music is something that I do, not what I am) but it helps inform my perspective about others' reactions to similar provocations.
For example, my brother-in-law rarely gave out his real name since hearing a surname like "ba Suhail" often led to instant “Arab terrorist” profiling. Is he concealing a weapon? Is he about to kneel on a carpet and pray?
My brother-in-law's angry response to getting profiled (like during his last visit to NYC’s Museum of Modern Art), is not simply created in that instant, but results from a combination of his daily life experiences: riding the subway, walking down the street, ordering food from a street vendor, sitting on a park bench…imagine if your every move was under surveillance and scrutiny?
When an adult expresses anger or acts out in public, rather than escalating these incidents we can try to approach others by acknowledging their frustrations.
"View others as sacred or as brothers and sisters in distress, rather than demonizing them as 'the other'. While it seems out of fashion now, one superpower that we all have readily available is kindness. Kindness goes a long way to defuse stressful situations when expressed with respect and compassion, even under difficult circumstances” (Plante, 2022).
I'm sharing the following story because it takes place near Frederick, Maryland in 1983. Reading this story felt personally impactful because in 1983, I was 8-years-old, living in Maryland, and our family went weekend "antiquing" in Frederick. I can remember walking the streets, past the antique shops and music venues. It was an extremely white and conservative town.
To offer an example of just how "white" it was, my mother is part Cherokee and my sister and I reflect her coloring and "native" facial features. Growing up, my sister and I were often told by the other children: Where are you from? You don't look American.
In 1983, a white man walked into an all-white music venue in Frederick, Maryland, and he noticed that a black man was playing in an otherwise all-white country band. He approached the musician and told him, “I really like y’all’s music. This is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.” The piano player, a musician named Daryl Davis, replied that Jerry Lee Lewis was inspired by black musicians (Jilani, 2019).
The man didn’t believe Davis but liked his music so much that he was willing to have a drink with Davis and talk about their shared love of piano music. He told Davis he had never had a drink with a black man before. Davis wanted to know why, and that’s when the man admitted he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). But the man became a regular at Davis’s performances because he learned to see him as a great individual piano player, rather than through the lens of group stereotypes (Jilani, 2019).
(Photo of Daryl Davis holding up KKK robes at Blues and Rock for Humanity in November 2017.)
The encounter set Davis off on a crusade—he went on to befriend and convince over 200 members of the KKK to leave the organization.
"The entire effort was primarily based on Davis’s ability to connect with them one on one” (Jilani, 2019).
LISTEN TO DARYL DAVIS ON NPR. Podcast: The Silver Dollar Lounge : NPR - Nov.13, 2014
This story reveals a crucial skill for building bridges between different kinds of people: focusing on individual characteristics rather than group identity.
We judge people by their group membership—but research suggests other ways to see each other. Perhaps making the effort to understand another’s daily experiences might help us better empathize with them when conflicts invariably occur.
Rather than instantly thinking, “what is WRONG with that person?” we might take a moment to step back and consider, “what is this person going through?”
QUESTIONS
Can you remember the first time you labeled someone as "other"?
How did your perception of that person change over time? Why?
What do you think of Daryl Davis' crusade to befriend over 200 members of the KKK?
Share your thoughts.
References
Jilani, Z. (2019, August 28). How to beat stereotypes by seeing people as individuals. Greater Good. How to Beat Stereotypes by Seeing People as Individuals (berkeley.edu)
Konsor, M. (2016, May 4). Music and stereotypes [Blog]. Northern Light. Music and Stereotypes | Northern Light (northernlightnhcc.org)
Neuliep, J. W., & Jandt, F. E. (2021). University of Florida MMC 5708 Foundations of Intercultural Communication Electronic Edition. SAGE Publications.
Plante, T. G. (2022, January 20). Anger. Psychology Today. Are Adult Public Outbursts Here to Stay? | Psychology Today
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