Will the real homo sapiens please stand up?

alternatively: How to stop hate

So when I was in high school I was in the marching band...

Ok, you can stop laughing now.

Anyway, when I meet someone now, if I find out they were in marching band, we play a little game. What instrument did you play?

Not to brag, but I'm pretty good at this game. Because if you look at most of the groups within the band, you notice certain trends, certain groups get a reputation.

If you played trumpet, you were a hot shot and a little full of yourself.

If you played percussion, you were a squirrely spaz, or I dated you.

If you were a flute player, you were a stuck-up girl, or a girl in general.

If you were a clarinet player, you remind me of Amy Farrah-Fowler.

If you were a tuba player, you were a party animal, and generally an all-around awesome person to be around.

Of course, these are exaggerations, but you see what I'm saying. We had our cliques, and it said something about you without even realizing it. And it's always a funny joke for me because people usually guess I played the flute. Which I did, until I became awesome.

What does this have to do with real-life people hate? In case you've been living under a rock, get on your google and search Indiana and gay. It will tell you everything you need to know and more. Then there's the feminist issues popping up all over the internet and rape shaming, which is beyond my comprehension. And I would be remiss if I didn't include the Baltimore riots and before that the Ferguson riots. Can't exclude pretty much everything going on in the Middle East.

But what do all the issues have in common? Hate.

And it makes me sick. Because everyone is so busy trying to decide who is right and who is wrong that we're really missing the big picture. We're all humans. And somewhere, a long time ago, we stopped seeing that. We started segregating into white or black, gay or straight, woman or man. Not just people.

So yes, the marching band is a ridiculously small model of a human ecosystem, but if I'm judging one person based on what I think about a group of people that I knew *cough* fifteen years ago, then how is it really any different.

Will I stop playing my guessing game in the future? Probably not. Because it's a fun way to get to know people. But I will stop judging all percussionists because of that one jerk that broke up with me in high school.

Moral of the story, next time one of these hot button issues comes up, stop. Take the situation and put it in the context of a human being. Things look a lot different from that perspective.



Thank you to http://www.reactiongifs.com/ for the gifs.