racing on

One night, the Boy and I were discussing something not very important when he said something that made me raise both eyebrows. I don't remember exactly what it is, but it made me say, "That's so racist!"

The Boy immediately disagreed. He said being racist is when you hate someone just because of their race - and he was not, and will never do that.

I disagreed because I think making any judgement, positive or negative, based on the concept of race is being racist.

Of course, this does mean that everyone is at least a little bit racist, but that isn't always a bad thing. And before any rock-throwing starts, hear me out k?

Having a preconceived set of notions about anything or anyone means that your mind has a set of stereotypes that it uses. Stereotypes aren't bad - they help us to navigate the big, bad, confusing world by giving us a set of parameters in which to operate. Most intelligent people, however, then rearrange the ideas that we originally have to incorporate additional information. It goes without saying that you get the idiots who prefer to never exercise their brain.

The way I see it is stereotypes of all kinds - racist or not - are like the basic building blocks that we begin playing with first when we first find out about something, but later we can throw them out or keep them as a foundation when we learn more about that something.

Of course, I didn't figure all that out on my own. I read some of what I just said about stereotypes somewhere, but it makes sense to me.

And in fact, I see this happening everywhere. People build little boxes around other people they meet at first, and sometimes these little boxes fit perfectly but sometimes, the boxes get thrown out because they're wrong.

Experience seems to affect how often the boxes get thrown out: as I gain more experience in life - I wanted to avoid saying grow older! - my little boxes fit better more often or need only a little bit of modification here and there.

Maybe one day, I'll be able to size up people with just a glance! That would be so cool!