I am ___________________

Today the students at my school showed a lot of solidarity towards racial stereotypes by writing "I am ___________ " signs taped to their clothes. The signs exposed their race and a multitude of other stereotypes that followed:

I am Mexican. I'm on the T diet. I got pregnant at 15 and go home to an abusive husband.

I am black. I will rob you and sell drugs in your neighborhood.

I am white. I'm privileged and will to go a better school than you. People don't suspect me of doing any crime.

This compelled me to write my own:

I am a woman. I wear high heels and wish I had bigger breasts. I cook and want to please others before I please myself. I wear tons of make up and pretend to be stupid.

If you think about it too much, it's depressing. It hurts. But that's the whole point -- and furthermore, we are NOT those stereotypes and we even surpass them when we realize our greatness and overcome hardships to achieve our dreams. OK now I'm sounding mushy.

Either way, this "movement" sparked many genuine conversations throughout the school and I can already feel the bad vibes wearing off. We're all in need of a vacation and will get one next week, but this has helped tame the fire that we are all feeling in this tiny school.

Lest I forget, all this conversation reminded me of an "In Living Color" skit my boyfriend showed me a couple of weeks ago:

(Of course, ignore the ad in the beginning :-P