Savannah Mul – Opinions Editor –
I have blonde hair; this isn’t hard to notice. All my life people have been throwing blonde jokes in my direction, and last week I lost it when a redneck racecar driver insulted me.
I’ll leave him nameless, but at Everybody’s Market in Cheshire (where I work) for promotional reasons they hosted an event signing for a racecar driver. Trust me in that you’re not the first person to think, “Why would a professional racecar driver be interested in a small grocery store in Cheshire?” But long story short, a worker within the company won a contest and was able to pick a professional driver to meet.
My manager asked me to go outside for a store picture with employees and the racecar driver. Now the excitement that came over me was far less than if someone who actually knew this guy would have had.
So half asleep, I proceeded outside with another employee into the mass of people. I turned around to my friend and told her, “Where do we have to go, I’m confused.” Then swooping up behind me to give an answer was the racecar driver. He asked if my confusion had anything to do with my hair color and then continued to say that he knows blondes and they aren’t very bright.
Wow. As I was about to answer, he walked away and turned to the camera for his next picture to be taken. What a guy. First of all, who is “they?” He is putting all blondes in one category as “they.” Our world, in terms of stereotypes and racism, has a long way to come ‘till people will stop referring to people or groups of people as “they.”
Stereotypes are everywhere, but that doesn’t give a person the right to throw or accuse another to be a certain way or live a certain lifestyle. When he told me this, it heightened my beliefs that still, most of the world is naïve. That probably will never go away, and whether or not he meant it as a joke, it’s still principle. People shouldn’t just walk around calling blondes dumb.
Plus where do blonde males fit into on this “dumb blonde” stereotype? Do they take any of the heat for their hair color? It seems that this particular stereotype is just placed more so on females. In the long run it might even help out those females (and males if ridiculed) with natural blonde hair, because they’ll be pushed to their limits in achieving what they want.
This is true for any stereotype. Whenever one says otherwise the immediate reaction is to outsmart or outdo them by showing off what you got. By proving stereotypes wrong it’s more empowering than just sitting back and taking the annoying ridicule.
