Stereotyped Essay, Research Paper
Today teenagers are stereotyped everyday. Stereotyping has become a natural
reaction by the older generation when they see a teenager that is dressed
different or acts different than what they used to at that age. Their idea of
what a person should dress like or act like is compleatly different from the
ideas of teenagers. I have found out the hard way over the last few years.
Teenagers are stereotyped all of the time.
For instance, I went to Wal-Mart to get a job and people doing the employing
had all of the people who were getting applications go to the back room and
watch a film. Basicly the filmwas about the proper way to dress act and even how
long your facial hair could be. One of the employers basicly singled me out and
said,"I am going to use this young man here for an example. The pants he
has on are to baggy." The jeans I had on at that time were actually not
baggy at all because I was trying to dress nice for the interveiw. "He will
have to shave off his gotee and sideburns." Then he went on and talked
about thier dress code and how the employees were expected to act. Then he did
somthing I did not believe. He said, " All of you will have to take a drug
test." then he looked strait at this kid and said,"Some of you may not
pass." After that I had gotten enough abuse for one day so I just got up
and walked out.
Another example of teenagers being stereotyped is when teens are in a group.
Just because they are standing there the older generation thinks they are
drinking, using drugs, or just up to no good in general. For instance, the
police in my hometown will not let more than two cars of teens congragate in one
place at a time. I do not think that is fair because if you want to stop and
talk to someone you have to wait until one of the cars leave.
Teenagers are sometimes thought guilty of things just for the simple fact
that they are teenagers. For example I had a wreck with an older woman a few
years ago. I was coming up to a stop sign so I slowed down. When I got to the
sign I did the same stop that everybody does at signs on back streets, the one
where you slow down almost to a stop but not quite then you go. This stop sign
was a little different in that there are bushes all the way down the side of the
street, so it is kind of hard to see. So I looked and looked again and still saw
no one so I went. Just as I start to pull through a car slams into the passenger
side of my car. I was driving a 1978 Chevrolet Caprice Classic, it was a big,
bulky car. I was hit by a 1991 Pontiac Grand Am, which is a tiny car compared to
mine. The speed limit in this spot is 15 miles per hour because it is a school
zone. Now that I have the setting established I will continue the story. This
tiny car hits my "tank" of a car and knocks it over about 5 feet.car
that hit me bounced off the front passenger fender and hit the back fender hard
enough to bend the back wheel. So this car bounces off my back fender and goes
about 15 feet further up ahead, tires screeching the whole way. So I jump out of
my car t
car in time to see an older woman reaching across the seat to get her insurence
out of her glove box.When I knocked on the window to see if she was o.k. she
abruptly sat up and said her neck was hurt. Now lets think about this for a
second, she was leaning over and streaching to reach the glove box, also when I
knocked on her window she sat up so quickly that if she had a neck injury she
would have been sreaming in agony. I could not belive that she was actually
saying she had a neck injury after what I saw her doing. I was so mad I just had
to walk off. I felt like grabing my neck, falling down, and saying I can’t feel
my legs, but I refreaned. The other issue I want to address is that is the speed
she had to be gonig to do what she did. She definatly had to be going well over
the speed limit to do the damage she did to my car and her car as well. her car
was turned around facing my car about 15 feet away. She knocked my car 5 feet
strait sideways. If 15 miles per hour does that I would hate to get hit at 30
miles per hour. A police car finally came and the woman told the police woman
she needed an ambulance. She called in an ambulance and they took the
"injured" woman away. Then the police woman came over and wrote me a
ticket for running a stop sign. That I understood but when I tried to tell her
that the woman had to be speeding she just gave me a dumb look and went on doing
what she was doing before I asked her the question. That made me so mad because
she didn’t even ask my side of the story, she didn’t even ask me if I ran the
stop sign. The next day I even saw the woman at work, she was not even wearing a
neck brace. Our insurance company called a few days later and said that she is
trying to sue us. That made me even more mad. Luckly we had good insurence so
she didn’t have a chance, but it still made me very angry. I know many instances
where teens got tickets that adults would get away with.
Teenagers are often stereotyped and discriminated against nowdays. I think it
is kind of sad that teenagers and the older generations can’t get along just
because of age or the way we dress, act, or even the music we listen to. I think
that some people refuse to beleive things have change that much since they were
teenagers. Today people are starting to realize that all teens are not bad just
because some of them go out and get drunk or do drugs. As hard as it might be to
belive alot of teens don’t even want to drink or get high, they just think there
are better ways to spend their time. Take me for instance, I am so laid back and
willing to do things people are afraid to do that I would hate to see what I
would do if I did drink or get high, I would probably do something that would
kill me. All I am trying to do is just to let people know just how much teens
are stereotyped and discrminated against just because of their age. Not all
teens are like the ones you see on televison or in the papers. Teenagers do more
good things that go unnoticed than things they do that end up on the front page
of the newspaper or on the local news.