Assumptions are bad but are easy to make
Posted by Rebecca Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:30:00 GMT
I just met a man who is living here on a special visa that he obtained through a lottery. It is special because he is from Iran and American visas are very difficult for Iranians to get because our countries hate each other.
He is one of the nicest prospective students I’ve ever met and I was glad to be able to direct him to the professors who research in his area of interest. In fact, helping people out like that is probably my favorite part of this job.
Anyway, I wasn’t thinking when he came into my office and I stood up to show respect and greeted him with a smile and a handshake.
I then went through my schpiel about our program and introduced him to the graduate advisor so that he could learn about applying and what’s expected and what degree options we offer.
After he left a thought suddenly flew into my head that went something like this:
“Crap. I shook his hand. Crap.”
Underneath that verbal thought was a string of composite thoughts that if verbalized would read like this:
Oh my goodness he’s probably muslim and I’m not so he thinks I’m unclean because I’m a woman and my head is uncovered and my face is showing and oh my gosh so are my forearms and he touched me when he shook my hand probably to be polite and culturally sensitive because this is America and women have power and now he’s sinned and he’s not going to have a shot at 70 virgins and he gonna hate me for it forever.
Then a split second later I realized that all this was stupid.
I don’t know this man. Maybe he’s part of the 2% of the Iranian population that isn’t muslim or maybe he’s not an extremist and so he’s ok shaking my hand and I’m just being silly because Iran and America hate each other and Iran doesn’t like Israel either and so in theory I should hate all Iranians but I just can’t bring myself to do it because leaders don’t always reflect the beliefs of their countrymen and individuals should always have a chance to be just that - individuals.
After all, there’s bound to be intelligent people hanging out in Iran who are cringing at their government as much as people over here are. Not everyone assumes their leaders are inerrant.
