Prejudice

A confession: fourth grade boys all look alike to me.

I know, I sound like a white person saying that all black people look alike, or a black person saying that all white people look alike. And just like a white person who says some of her best friends are black, I can also say that fourth grade boys whom I know and love look different. I can see my nephew and J and J's son and some of the boys M went to school with for years as individuals. But when I look at a pack of fourth grade boys, I just see boyness, repeated again and again.

It's not like that with girls. Girls I immediately individuate, whether I know them or not. That one is short and chatty; that one is pale and looks sad; that one has dreads and wears her backpack on one shoulder. When M starts to refer to names, I can remember the faces. A, her new best friend, is Nepali and has a new baby brother. E, who lives down the street, is tall and has long red hair and walks to school with her cousin. J is round and giggles--she invited M to her birthday party next week.

But when she talks about the boys, who are clearly individuals to her, I just don't get it. Which one is C? S? Is that the nice S or the mean S? Which boy is taking saxophone lessons while she takes clarinet? Like I said, they're all the same to me, in their sneakers, t-shirts, and shorts, with their short hair and long bodies, a pack of alien beings.

Prejudice: so often rooted in ignorance.