On Stereotypes and Surprises

I think we all have things we truly love in life; things in which we find God's pleasure. I have always loved bass and rhythm. Not that I have either, mind you, but I have always rejoiced in the work of others. There is something almost spiritual about a rugged bass line so hard it vibrates your inner chest.

This love for bass and rhythm has always attracted me to rap, R&B, and Reggae where the percussion is basically the main event. When I was younger, that probably made some sense to people. I kind of looked the part. I had the clothes, the too cool facial expression, and the obligatory gold chain. I was your basic suburban gangsta. That was then....

....this is now. Now, I am 36. Now I am an "executive". Now I am bald; and not the cool bald but the old man bald (I'll explain in next post). Now I am a husband and a father. Now I am an elder in what most would consider a very conservative church. The interesting bit is that I still love rhythm and bass only now I don't look the part at all. When people interact with me, I can almost guarantee they don't think "obvious TuPac fan". That's why people are always so surprised when I break into beat box, or rattle off 2 or 3 verses of some old rap song. The other day I started a meeting with LL Cool J's "Radio" and you would have thought people had seen a ghost.

I don't fit people's stereotype of a rap fan, and rap doesn't fit people's stereotype of me. The distance between those two things is so large it inevitably creates a level of shock when people find out. I am fascinated by that fact.

I mean when you really think about it, it is just a new piece of information about me; one the person didn't have before. The unique thing is that this particular piece of information doesn't fit the assumptions the person created about me. I understand that part of it is just the way we think. We build schema and patterns based on things we have observed historically. Then as we gather new information we use those past learnings to interpret it. There are benefits to that process. It is handy when someone is running after us with a bat and we assume they mean us harm instead of exploring their motivations before we react by running away. But recently I have been struck by the cost of this process in our relationships with other people. Think about the what ifs. What if we suspended this process in our normal interactions with other people? What if we abandoned our stereotypes and assumption making? What if every piece of information we learned was a complete surprise because we had no preconceptions? How might our world change?

Would we talk more with each other because we had more questions? Would we know each other better because our assumptions would be replaced by real information? Would we be more inclusive because we didn't assume other people's answers? Would we be more free because we wouldn't limit our interactions with those we assume won't like us?

I don't know really. Even if I tried, I don't think that I can enumerate the full set of outcomes from such a foundational change. I do know that as I have thought about it the past few days my heart has been encouraged. I can sense something sweet and beautiful inside this idea. Don't get me wrong, I know this is not new. All I am saying is that it has hit me in a new way. I am used to talking about stereotypes of race and gender; big, lofty, politically charged. I am not used to thinking about more local assumptions. I am sure it will be next to impossible to suspend all of them, but for now its my goal. I want to be surprised, not because people don't meet my preconceived notions, but because I really had no idea until I asked. I think some good will come of it, how about you?