So think about this one for a second (or five) - who do you know that has achieved true success in life either in a way that surprised you or as a person you didn't think had it in them?
And how about this one - how often do you assume that you know what people are like based on what they look like? Research has demonstrated that overweight people are more likely to be discriminated against than almost any other group. That people assume that because someone is overweight they are lazy and have no discipline - because if they did they obviously wouldn't be overweight. Something that anyone that regularly works with overweight people trying to slim down can tell you is patently untrue.
Where do YOU make assumptions based on appearance? Is it the way they dress? Their age? The number of tattoo's? Their smile? How do you know someone is competent? Or capable? Or willing to work?
Every minute we are bombarded with sensory impressions. In order to handle those without going into complete melt-down, we delete things around us, we generalise them - and we distort them.
We no longer notice the signs on the streets - because we have passed them before. We take no notice of the people in the supermarket, because there are so many of them and we are focused on something else.
We think 'a bunch of school-kids' when they pass without noticing the individual faces and expressions.
And we categorise people based on what we have been taught by our family, friends and the society that we live in - and by previous experiences. A head scarf may be category Muslim. Or category 'Different'....
No matter what we do, we will always categorise, generalise and delete, because that is how we handle the world. What we CAN do, however, is to recognise what we do and question those categories regularly ...
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