Imagine being asked if your lips are contorted? or if you have a pug nose?... How would you feel if I questioned about twitching features you may have? or Is your mouth distorted during speech or laughter.
These are some of the questions I had to answer on a 'Suspect identification form'. And 'NO' I have no criminal records, nor was I caught jumping out of windows after robbing a bank. It's a form myself and other tutlings had to fill in at our tutorial, Wednesdays at 17H00pm.
After filling in the forms, we were asked to discuss, amongst ourselves, any features we may have discovered about our selves. I'm not sure what I discovered about myself, but I can tell you that, this is the most insensitive piece of paper I have ever had to engage with. I have been called many things in the past but so much belittlement on one piece of paper... question after question... is unacceptable.
Rose: "Why so much detail"?
Cara: "It's because it's to identify criminals"
I concluded that it could mainly be for the drawings that are done and placed on our television screens and newspapers as the "Wanted" people. Regardless of the search of these criminals who are 'such a threat to society', we even tend to think of them as useless and deserving bad treatment, where is a sign of some sort of sensitivity? What does the motion of my lips have to do with my criminal acts? Could they have not used others words to describe this motion? Have you people never heard of synonyms?
It pisses me off that we treat people in accordance to the social doctrine we have placed them in. Where the hell does another human being get off using hurtful words, just because the 'other' is now 'inferior'? We are all equal, regardless of our acts, God created us all with a purpose and this 'box' we place people in interferes with them fulfilling and taking note of their purpose.
I am not one to point fingers, although I already have, because right now I feel like a mother with one hand on the waist and the other pointing with my mouth moving uncontrollably, but I am one to give an opinion...And this, this right here is how I feel.
They tried to sweeten me up by placing sweet and wonderful adjectives on the other side of the questionnaire...I don't care about your knowledge of adjectives. Please educate yourself about synonyms.
Peace, Love and Vegetables.
Rose
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Contorted lips or Pug nose...
Posted by zamo-rose =) at 8:01 PM
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4 comments:
The first point that I learnt from the tutorial exercise where I was made by the Journalism department to identify myself as a suspect and then list myself as a person, was the problematic and even dangerous nature of trying to relate everything into set limited categories. The world is not divided into people with long/round/square/fat/thin faces! These attempts to fit people into set categories even on a purely physical hides the diversity of each individual person, this same mentality into constant limited categorization leads to stereotyping, prejudice and a ultimately failed mission. Dividing us further and further into smaller and smaller groups just leads to even more alienation than already felt by those living as a 19-21 brown haired medium male demographic. The second point was that by limiting the amount of words used to describe anything leads to the limitation of thought, if we have a limited number of words used to describe our idea partner, you limit the qualities that we can think of in a ideal partner, by limiting language your limiting thought. The third and final point that I learnt was that from all apparent analysis I was the only person in my tut group with styled facial hair which was ego boosting, especially when I stroked my goatee while listing the essence of self on a yellow piece of paper.
When a yellow suspect identity form was placed in front of me at my Journalism 1 tutorial I was frankly quite surprised!!! I began mentally checking my qualities off the ones provided but thought we would be 'witnesses' to the crime our fellow tutlings had committed...
Alas the form was for the authorities to identify ME as the suspect character. My name, sex and nationality were easy enough by wait how tall am I? the last time I was measured was... wait I can't remember!!! I suppose that could be the first thing I learnt from Wednesday's Tut, I actually don't know everything about myself and basically without a mirror I could not describe myself from memory.
The second thing I learnt was that I'm none of the adjectives the form prescribed me to use about myself... I mean I have a fairly strange build, I'm not quite stout but I'm not slim either, and what on earth is medium? Unlike my fellow blogees I'm not offended by the fact that the only options they gave us for the category "nose" were; small, large, pug, hooked, straight or flat, instead I am rather dissapointed that out of the vast english language they could only give us six to choose from...
The third and last thing I learnt from the tut was that I am a reliable, independent, creative person, well those were the three adjectives that came up most when I would describe myself to people in a range of different circumstances.
In all honesty if I had to had this form over to the feds and asked them to draw what was described, I have a feeling that I would not look anything like the suspect described on that yellow form.
Callous categorisation, unacceptable!
Have we already run out of things to do for this term? This was the question I asked myself as I was filling in a yellow paper titled suspect identification form, not only did this feel like a wast of my time it was also insulting. Apparently, we were supposed to learn something new about our identity from this exercise.
Learn something new, well I’m not so sure about that. The only thing the exercise did was to re-emphasise how much people get judged by the way they look, become categorised and identified by their distinct features , such as having a mouth which is ‘distorted during speech or laughter’. How can you identify a person under such categories regardless of whether they are a criminal or not, no not even a criminal a “suspect”.
Fine I admit that when we were doing this exercise during the tutorial most of us took it as a joke and laughed it off , the people who setup this tutorial were probably thinking “Ag what the hell it’s just For DP purposes”. But really it isn’t, you are asking people to see if they fit into any of the harsh categories you described and to tolerate those categories as being part of the norm in society. Let us not treat each other like imbeciles, we are all humans and we all have feelings.
To the person who came up with this exercise firstly, I hate doing things just for DP purposes secondly, I know who I am and what my identity is thus I did no learn anything new about my identity, and lastly, if you want me to discover more about my identity how about asking me grammatically correct questions and questions of relevance to my life.
Tut Work That Proved to be Somewhat Suspect
Am I a generic? While my immediate response would be “nope, not I”, upon further contemplation I realized that everyone is just like everyone else in one way or another. I have blonde hair.. but so does she and so does he. Ten fingers, eyelashes and teeth. In our Journalism tut we were given a sheet to fill in... weight, hight, physical features and the like. While others have expressed their anger towards it, I don't really feel that my individuality was at jeopardy when filling out this piece of paper. I don't need the piece to resemble a document of proof that I am an individual. And while we all are individuals, there are certain things we all have in common through which we can be put into groups. As humans we tend to enjoy putting people in groups. Besides, it would be unpractical to expect an extensive list of features to cater to everyone's uniqueness.
However, from this tutorial I learnt (yes, it was possible to learn a little something from this seemingly pointless exercise) that the way I view myself and the way other people perceive me is very different even on the topic of physical features. The second thing I learnt was that it was often tricky to decide which of the options best suited me; I really don't know myself as well as I had previously thought. I'd also obviously be a terrible suspect as I unfortunately don't house any grotesque marks or scars on my body to identify me from others. Finally, I learnt that there are too many sensitive people occupying the earth. Life shouldn't be taken seriously considering no one makes it out alive anyway. So what if you have to get off you “I AM AN INDIVIDUAL” podium once in a while and circle something that may put you into a possible stereotype?
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