Discrimination Caused by Stereotypes
When I lived in a small town called Crestview, Florida, I was known as a skater
or punker. This was because of the way I dressed, the way I talked, the way I wore my
hair and the music that I listened to. Because I was known as a skater people had a
preconceived opinion of me. What I mean is that people treated me differently because
of their concept of me. Even though some people got to know me pretty well, some still
thought that I was a stereotypical skater. I really was not a typical one, which is what I
First, most stereotypical skaters do drugs; I won't and never will, but because of
my stereotype a lot of people thought that I did drugs. A lot of skaters are also very rude.
I am a very polite person, which a lot of people did not want to believe, and because of
Second, my clothes are a little baggier than normal, and because of that I was
treated differently. For instance when I walked into a gas station, the clerk would not
take his/her eyes off of me just because of the way I dressed, and the clothes that I wore,
which was really annoying to me. They went out of their way to watch me and only me.
Also, when I would walk into the mall in Ft. Walton cops would follow me around all
over the place because of my clothes and the stereotype that goes along with that.
Another example is one day my friends and I were skating outside a grocery store
called Winn Dixie which allowed us to skate there, and a cop pulled up and
watched us the whole time that we were there. One time a cop tried to arrest us, pulled us
over, and searched us, but he did not find anything on us that was not supposed to be
there. So he probably felt kind of stupid. My friends and I know it was not his fault. It
was the stereotype of skaters that made him do
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