Painfully and Irrevocably (?) Stereotyped...

Having a strong dislike towards even the faintest pigeon-holing of people and their personality traits, I’d like to believe I am above stereotypes. But the unfortunate truth is that I am not and that I indulge often enough in stereotyping people, conveniently placing them in neat little categories. It is easier isn’t it, to refer to people by the label you have stuck on their forehead and not make an effort to understand them individually and get to the core of what makes them tick? But the easiest ways are not always the best ways of doing things and I must also admit that there have been several opportunities when I have been ashamed and regretted having judged someone on the basis of stereotypes. I followed the guidelines set by society, but I wonder how those guidelines come into existence in the first place?

On an anecdotal tangent, a few weeks ago I was in centre-ville and meandering through the streets as is my wont. Despite the fact that Grenoble is a more polluted city than other European cities where I have previously stayed, the air is still much more fresh and pure than the one I’m accustomed to breathing. Combined with the brisk chill, my nose is often quivering in excitement like a mouse in the presence of cheese and I pick up almost every odour I encounter, much alike the main character in Perfume (or so I like to imagine and I’m providing extremely redundant and pointless details here)…

…so there I was walking along this deserted street and heard someone walking up behind me. My nose picked up the faint smell of alcohol and tobacco mixed with a certain element of stagnation, perspiration and a certain rough dusty quality which I would associate with someone who does a lot of physical work. My mind prepared itself to see a black person walk past me and indeed it was a tall, bulky black man in a heavy overcoat which looked like it hadn’t been washed in several years. A little later I walked past a cinema hall and two minutes later a man ran out of the door I’d passed. As he approached me from behind, I was assailed by the strong and distinct smell of expensive male cologne and I imagined a white man, tall and lean, probably wearing a smart shirt and well-fitting jeans. I was not disappointed. He was blond as well and really fit perfectly into the little box in which I had placed him.

Finally, standing at the bus stop I watched as an Indian man crossed the street – as he came closer my nose quivered in irritation at the strong smell of coconut oil and annoyingly enough the smell of garam masala…(don’t get me wrong – I love the smell of garam masala, but in my food, not on people!) and I found myself thinking that he could not have underlined his national identity any stronger and that he was one of those “typical desis” you encounter abroad! And it suddenly hit me – had I just walked out of the kitchen I might have smelt very similar, ergo like a “typical desi.” What was I doing looking down my haughty and apparently more sophisticated nose at just another being, as much my equal as anybody else?

Throughout the day I had classified people correctly but rather arbitrarily on the basis of what my olfactory senses picked up and believe me, I may have a cute nose, but I really don’t have “the” nose…and I had unwittingly placed the white man on the highest rung. Why? The dusty, tobacco and alcohol smell could just as well have come from a white man as the irresistible and sexy cologne could have come from a black man and I have encountered enough of both to have known better than to stereotype. The co-incidence that my stereotyped imagination proved to be right was just that – a co-incidence, and I knew that. Imagine then the extent of the social conditioning that made me indulge in such stereotypes despite knowing and recognising them as faulty classifications of people. If this is how I function despite my apparent resistance to stereotypes, how then do people who do not resist them behave? It makes me shudder indeed to think of it…

Currently listening to Kandisa by Indian Ocean, feeling very pleasantly mellow and content after eating an entire bar of chocolate and dreaming with anticipation about my upcoming trip to Bordeaux, instead of concentrating at the task in hand. :-)