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Race can play a factor in this, "You're acting too white," "You're acting too black," but that is not specifically what I am talking about.
People tend to be a lot like the people they grew up with and around. Me and my two best friends all played instruments had many of the same interests. My best friend Jeremy loved The Rolling Stones. Other people would tell me and Dan how weird it was that Jeremy liked classic rock like us but not rap or as Jeremy loved to call it crap.
I wasn't color blind I knew Jeremy was black but we were friends until he moved away when I was 11 and it never occurred to me that even mattered. It wasn't until I was thinking back as an adult why people even thought it was weird. Now I look around and I notice that people of all colors and regions act in very specific ways that often make them stand apart from their friends in odd ways.
Certain behaviors, interests etc were decided to be representative of this race or that one. Or this region or that one, or sexuality.
If you're man who's open with your emotion it's okay because you're Gay. Oh wait you're not Gay then why are you like that?
Sound like you're Southern awww you're simple or stupid.
People all over the country find themselves either defending the right to be like their friends or having to act like people they've never even met.
Regional ones tend to have it the easiest as they only have to start altering their behavior or accent when moving away from home. For example Hal Sparks is from Kentucky but sounds like my next door neighbors.
Every black kid though surrounded by friends in the suburbs growing up liking the same music and wearing the same clothes is expected to emulate every gangster archetype and speak like he/she's from some bad 90s flick where their the token "urban" character. If they don't people ask them why they don't.
Like with Jeremy forever being asked why he didn't like a genre of music that everyone had decided you had to like if you were a certain skin tone.
The thing is we seem to expect people to have to act a certain way and then treat them like it. I worked with a guy from New York once and you could tell from his accent the questions were all "Have you been mugged" "why don't you dress like a New Yorker" etc.
"Texas where's your cowboy boots,"
I just wonder does anyone think it will ever be okay to just act like yourself and not have people challenge you for doing so?
People tend to be a lot like the people they grew up with and around. Me and my two best friends all played instruments had many of the same interests. My best friend Jeremy loved The Rolling Stones. Other people would tell me and Dan how weird it was that Jeremy liked classic rock like us but not rap or as Jeremy loved to call it crap.
I wasn't color blind I knew Jeremy was black but we were friends until he moved away when I was 11 and it never occurred to me that even mattered. It wasn't until I was thinking back as an adult why people even thought it was weird. Now I look around and I notice that people of all colors and regions act in very specific ways that often make them stand apart from their friends in odd ways.
Certain behaviors, interests etc were decided to be representative of this race or that one. Or this region or that one, or sexuality.
If you're man who's open with your emotion it's okay because you're Gay. Oh wait you're not Gay then why are you like that?
Sound like you're Southern awww you're simple or stupid.
People all over the country find themselves either defending the right to be like their friends or having to act like people they've never even met.
Regional ones tend to have it the easiest as they only have to start altering their behavior or accent when moving away from home. For example Hal Sparks is from Kentucky but sounds like my next door neighbors.
Every black kid though surrounded by friends in the suburbs growing up liking the same music and wearing the same clothes is expected to emulate every gangster archetype and speak like he/she's from some bad 90s flick where their the token "urban" character. If they don't people ask them why they don't.
Like with Jeremy forever being asked why he didn't like a genre of music that everyone had decided you had to like if you were a certain skin tone.
The thing is we seem to expect people to have to act a certain way and then treat them like it. I worked with a guy from New York once and you could tell from his accent the questions were all "Have you been mugged" "why don't you dress like a New Yorker" etc.
"Texas where's your cowboy boots,"
I just wonder does anyone think it will ever be okay to just act like yourself and not have people challenge you for doing so?