Walking today
by V.E. on April 23rd, 2008
filed under health, thoughts, wtf
I walked the miles today (22 April)… as fast as I could without jogging or running. By the end, my legs were killing me. It took exactly one hour. Two interesting things happened while I was out.
First, an old guy almost got run over. He was chatting in the middle of the street with another old guy and a car (which had just gone through a yellow-turned-red light) slammed on the brakes and the driver leaned out the window and screamed at the old guy. He raised up his hands and said, “Take it easy! What’s the hurry? There’s no fire.” It was classically Italian… which was good, I guess, ’cause both men were Italian. The driver, decidedly not Italian, screamed some more and sped away. The two old guys both laughed and congratulated each other on being alive.
Second, this nice-looking young Muslim woman (I know she was Muslim because she was wearing a hijab) had just come from Wendy’s with her boyfriend (I guess that’s what he was, I’m not really sure) and was heading into the park, through which I was walking. She was carrying a drink and, as if it was a normal thing to do, she set it down on the sidewalk and kept walking… At first, I thought she had to tie her shoe or something, but she just kept walking like the cup was never in her possession. I wanted to stop her and ask why she just blatantly littered like that, but I was afraid she’d think I was singling her out because she was Muslim (and I wasn’t)… Talk about reverse racism. In any case, I picked up the cup, dumped out its contents (ice and soda) into the grass and tossed it into the next trash can I walked by.
The reason I mention these two people’s apparent heritages is because I realized that when someone goes out, that person is not only representing him or herself, but also his or her gender, family, school, workplace, culture, race, religion, and everything else of which he or she is a part. If I had never seen an Italian or Muslim in person before today, my idea of what “Italian” and “Muslim” is would be based completely on those two old men and that young woman, whether I meant it to be or not. I would think Italians are easy-going and lax about danger (that is, standing in the middle of a busy street) and Muslims litter and don’t care about the Earth. I know that’s not true, but not everyone knows.
This brings me to stereotyping. If I thought all Muslims littered and all Italians cared less about their own safety, I would be stereotyping. Most people don’t think about representing their cultures when they go outside, and, likewise, they don’t think about thinking about other people stereotypically. It’s… meta-thought, if you will. I think being aware is part of the first step to creating a better world. Full disclosure is part of it, as I’ve mentioned before, and awareness is another part. Disclosure is when someone tells me, for example, everything they know that affects me to the best of their ability, and awareness is me being present enough in the moment to accept and understand what they’re telling me.
The second step is to figure out what to do with the information, and the third step is actually doing it… But that’s for another time.
