It scares me sometimes, to see what is going on in the great wide world out there, and to wonder what is going to happen when I am out of college and living in that world. This is not just the question of whether or not I will find a job or get into the graduate school of my choice, but whether people will look at me and recognize the humanity that exists within.
This is not just a question for life outside of Hanover or college. What I see and hear at Dartmouth arouses fear also. Am I only considered in relation to my activities and involvements, or do people look beyond those to see the opinions and beliefs that generate my actions and words?
It is human nature to look for ways to categorize people - that is how our brains work, to simplify the information we receive. What bothers me is when we forget that the people within those categories are humans with emotions and opinions and lives that we don't know about. We forget each other's humanness, judging by surface appearances, not looking for anything more.
I think we all forget sometimes. I remember feeling superior to the guy who approached me and my friend in San Francisco over break to try to sell us some drugs. He had no shoes and looked as if he hadn't had a shower in a month.
I forgot his humanity. I am not better than he. Neither is anyone else. But for the luck of my birth, which placed me in a home with family and friends that could help me make it through the myriad crises of life, I could have been that guy on the street. I still could be. I can't foresee the future. Who knows?
The drug dealer reminded me that humanity comes in all shapes and sizes, from all socioeconomic classes, anywhere people are. He taught me some lessons. That I or anyone else could have been in his place. That I or anyone else could be a name on the AIDS quilt. That I or anyone else could be any color of the rainbow, of any ethnic background, from any level of wealth or poverty. That before we are black or white, Jewish or Catholic or Muslim, conservative or liberal, homosexual or heterosexual, we are all people. We share a common bond and this bond makes us special. The categories we assign people to, and even those they assign themselves to, are secondary to our humanity, which unites us all.
