There are many things out there that are stereo typical.
There are so many rules telling woman, men, kids, elders, everyone how to be, how to behave, how to dress, how to speak, how to relax and how to be. Rules and regulations are set and standards and expectations are placed.
In the typical black community, a girl child has to know how to wash the dishes and all the other household chores, while the boy child is not taught how to do the very same things, because he will just get wife who knows how to do all those things. A man is told that he is not supposed to show emotion, not supposed to cry. A woman’s place was said to be the kitchen. A woman was forced into marriage and was not supposed to leave, even when she was not happy.
Parents would never talk to their kids about the “birds and the bees”, a daughter would never talk to her mother about a boyfriend and a father would never talk to his son about how to treat a woman. Mainstream folks never did these things. A family would much rather keep a secret than help the victim of the secret because they cared more about what people would think than the well-being of their own.
Why do you think all these things were done, why do you think people did all these things? Isn’t it the rules of the world? Isn’t it how things were always done, isn’t it how their elders lived, isn’t it what the magazines and blogs write, isn’t it what it is said on TV and what we hear on the radio and stumble across on the internet?
Some of these things are not done anymore. More like them are emerging though; they have the same dire consequences as the previous social rules did. If you are a certain way, you get labeled, if you wear a weave you are fake and less African, if you keep your hair natural you are not moving with the times and rural. These trends and ways of doing things are not for the good of anybody, they are just as bad as the previous ones. Times are changing and people’s perceptions and understandings become broad as they learn and as they are exposed to diversity. In the same breath people are also exposed to new society and new thoughts. Social thoughts and relating in the world that has become global is also a problem.
People are being told how to be, just like in the past when people where told what to do. As much as things are changing, they still relatively stay the same. We are being fed the rules of living, being told how everything works and how to follow and fit in. A guy to wear white socks or white shoes is a somehow offending someone out there who is a fashionista and did not like how it looks. Why is that person having a problem with another person’s personal choice? If you are on a date and you like a guy you must play with your hair and do something with your lips to show a guy you like him. What if you do not have hair to play with or you are not even the kind to do that?
There is a lot of “how to…” articles out there telling woman how to get and keep a man, how to behave on a first date. They tell men how to treat their mother-in-laws and how to keep their women happy. As if we are just one big thing off one thing. HOW TO EVERYTHING! Are we duplicates? Are we all supposed to just live by these rules and guidelines that some person put up together based on who knows what? I thought being different, sticking to being who you are and not trying to be what you are not was the thing to do.
We face many challenges in our lives and we really should not just follow suit just because it is how it’s done, or it has long being done. Let’s do things because we want to do them, because they feel right to us, because
we want to do them. There shouldn't be any other reason!
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