stereotyping/prejudice
Today I experienced, perhaps for the first time, a very real example of being stereotyped. In high school, I used to enjoy challenging stereotypes by dressing strangely (but behaving as I normally would), but then I was expecting people to make assumptions about me. Today I was not expecting that. I was driving home from the Post Office when I drove past a lady on the side of the road. She was wearing gloves and the same shirt as another person across the street, so I’m assuming they were there to do some sort of clean-up work. When the car in front of me drove past, she waved the car through as if to say, “Go ahead, you can go through,” but when I drove past, right behind the other car, she motioned as if to say, “Whoa buddy, you need to slow down.” I was going exactly the same speed as the car in front of me, about 30 mph, which was certainly under the speed limit for that road. I can only assume that she assumed since I wasn’t driving an expensive BMW like the person in front of me, but was instead driving a bright orange car, she figured I was an awful driver. I’m not really sure why she was waving us through at all, considering there were only her and her friend (coworker?) on the side of the road and no other work going on. But I was a little peeved that, even though there was no way possible for me to be speeding (I had been behind the other car for quite a while, so it’s not like I was speeding until I got there), she assumed that I was a terrible driver.