Good day, amazing people of the Hive Blockchain. Welcome back to my blog. It is another edition in the #hivelearners community. I am so delighted to participate in this week's prompt, stereotypes.
The picture is mine.
Stereotypes are very common among us humans. At some point in your life, you have been stereotyped by people around you because of their perception of you. They always think they know everything about you; they judge a book by its cover just because they have had an encounter with someone from your tribe. They will come up with this assumption that everyone from that tribe will behave like that. Some will go as far as telling you in your face. This is totally wrong; if the person is not strong enough, it will affect the person's mental health.
Stereotypes can limit someone's success. After I finish my NYSC, I move to Lagos because my chance of getting work there is high. I applied for work; luckily for me, I was among the people that were shortlisted for a physical interview. I think I was shortlisted because my surname didn’t sound Igbo. The moment I introduced myself, the response was, We can’t hire an Igbo in our organisation. I was confident enough to ask them their reasons. All they could say is that Igbo love money, they are greedy, and they can’t be trusted. One of them was like, Omo Igbo, it is true that you people are hard-working, but we can’t hire you. I was short of words because they don’t even know me, and they have concluded that I am greedy and I love money.
I have always heard people from the west saying that Igbo love money; most times I laugh over it because there is nobody that enjoys poverty. That is why everyone is hustling for the money. The truth is we Igbo have a hustling spirit, and we have an eye for money. When it comes to things that will give us money, we don’t play with it. For the fact that some people from my tribe are greedy or can’t be trusted, that doesn’t mean I will behave the same way.
There are other stereotypes about myself I have learnt to accept. Most times it hurts me, but I try my best to wave it out of my head. They are entitled to whatever they think about me. One of the stereotypes is that I am a silent killer. I am this kind of person that hardly talks. I am so quiet, I mind my space, and I am always indoors. They always say that quiet people are the most dangerous people because you don’t know what is in their mind; they are evil. Right from when I was small, I always stayed on my own. I don’t have the strength to argue or exchange words. That’s why I am always on my own. From the origin, this is who I am. That is not a good reason to tag me as a silent killer.
The picture is mine.
I have this friend that always distances herself from me because I am always on my own. She was having accommodations issues, and none of them rendered help to her. According to her, she was afraid to ask for my help. To her greatest surprise, I helped her. She is living in my house, and she gets to understand the kind of person I am. I only talk to people I am free with. She turned to my defender, and she was backing me up whenever people talked down at me.
We should never judge someone by what we think, see, or hear. Get close to the person to know who this person truly is.
This is my entry on the weekly prompts #hivelearners #hl-w174e1 topic stereotypes.
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