Stereotyping

I noticed something when I started working here. Many of the male instructors or coaches are balding, so they follow the trend and have their hair cut very short or shaved off completely. There are so many of them, and I'm so confused with whose names I need to remember vs. whom I'll see once in a blue moon, I'll go out on a limb and say that all middle-aged, white men look the same to me.

People (at least coworkers) are very careful about the language they use if race or skin color is mentioned in a conversation. (Robomarkov's e-mails used to end with a sig. that read, "If anyone asks what race you are, tell them human.")

When I arrived here and asked where to go shopping, I was told, "Don't go across the street because that's where all the sirens are." Not a word about skin color or why crime tends to be higher in that part of the city, but a message came across nonetheless. "Go through the tunnel," was the subsequent sentence.

So I went through the tunnel and found my Family Dollar and my Food Lion and Bi-Lo and various restaurants all on a street called Brainerd Road, which appears to stretch to infinity (i.e. I've never driven far enough on that road to find the Wal-Mart that Nuboss insists is out there -- not that I ever shop at that particular chain if I can help it). I felt like the only white person in the store (as, indeed, I probably was), but no one looked at me strangely, and everyone was nice, and I had money, and, if I really needed to defend myself, I could use the "I'm new here and don't know any better" excuse.

Then, I experimented with the map and found Ringgold Road (that of the used bookstore and the bowling alley mentioned in my 7/27/09 post). At our daily managers' meeting, I was clued in to a quicker way to access that road: by going through another tunnel I didn't know existed. The fact that I saw two bowling alleys on it vs. no bowling alleys on Brainerd Road stuck in my head for some reason. The fact that our security chief recommended I go to a barber shop on that road stuck in my head. Then, after the meeting, when I was pulled aside and told, "That's what I meant when I was telling you to go through the tunnel," was my "Aha!" moment.

I'll go ahead and use the words no one else would. "You'll be more comfortable there because it's the white part of town."

Side note: I tried the Mexican restaurant on Ringgold Road on Sunday (1 down, 23 to go -- not counting Taco Bell). Even though there were Hispanic staff, and even though my waitress even had an accent, it was terribly bland. Was it like this because it was in "the white part of town"? Was it like this because, even with Hispanic staff, it's still in Tennessee? Is it because "Mexican" is truly different from "New Mexican"? (After 20 years, I still have trouble figuring that one out.)