Shopping In A Group While Black By Kenneth Meeks

Narrative

“No, thank you. She stinks, like reallllly stinks. She doesn’t look like she bathes, and I don’t want to talk to her,” I said to my friend Candice. Those were pretty harsh words for me to have said about the new girl in my seventh grade class, but I didn’t know any better. I had been taught some way or another, probably by the way television portrays the popular girls, that appearance should mean more to a person than who someone is on the inside. Sadly, at the ripe old age of twelve, I was more judgmental than a little bit. I did not grant anyone a chance to be my friend if they were not up to my standards of beauty, or in this case hygiene. Now looking back, I realize that that was an absurd way of thinking and am quite embarrassed.

Still, birdbrained, I prejudged Emily similar to the way the security guards did in “Shopping in a Group While Black”, by Kenneth Meeks. In Meek 's story a group of six men were instantly targeted because of the color of their skin. They were assumed to be thieves because of the way they looked. Unjustly, the security guards followed the African American boys into a store and retained them shortly afterward because of hearsay. However, it can be inferred that the true reason was racism. Due to the fact that their was no substantial evidence against the boys, the young men were let go without consequence. Much the same, I assumed that I couldn’t possible have anything in common with Emily because of the way she looked, but that was untrue. Emily was a warm person, and liked many of the same things I did. Sadly, because I judged her, I may have never gotten the chance to know that. In both cases the people doing the judging were proved wrong and foolish. Appearance is not what is most important and is not an accurate way of judging someone. People are not always who they look to be, but they are how they behave and treat others and should be judged