I must admit that I already have somewhat of an awareness of gender and race and representation, albeit a fairly recent one (it's only been since high school and up so about eight or nine years, but more concretely four years or so). I am especially interested in representation in politics.
I identify as a feminist and as a more liberally minded person, which drives my Fox News watching, conservative, white, middle-aged man of a father crazy. He actually unfriended me on Facebook because I kept posting links and sharing posts that he didn't agree with (aka that weren't from Fox News or The Blaze or other like-minded conservative media).
I think the reason I have these views is 1) because I took an Old and New Testament class the same semesters I took American Government classes, and during election season and 2) because I am a woman who was raised by a single working mother.
In our first class, we discussed schemas and stereotypes and something that popped into my head was a conversation I had with my father, in the IHOP by UNT, about police and minorities and about Wendy Davis being labeled as Abortion Barbie (which is apparently not normal breakfast conversation material, if the looks I got from neighboring tables were anything to go by).
It was right before the grand jury returned no indictment for Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown and my dad, being a retired police officer, sided with the police side while I, being someone who could admit there was corruption among police and saw various reports and eyewitness tweets and statements over discrepancies in the events leading up to the shooting and the investigation afterwards, sided with the other side.
My dad worked as a cop for 20-plus years, almost 30 years, in Killeen, Texas.
Google Killeen. I swear, no one actually likes living there, they just do it because it's cheap or because they work there. It's the 21st most populous city in Texas and has a racial makeup of 45% white, 34% black, 22% Hispanic/Latino and the rest being Asian or Native American or "Other."
The police force of Killeen is actually more diverse than that of Ferguson and the relationship between KPD and the residents of Killeen is much much better than that of FPD and Ferguson residents.
I'd been told many times before by my dad or my mom about my dad that he dealt with a lot of "shady" people and other criminals, who happened to be black, thus shaping his view on a certain "type" of black person. The only thing my dad said about Killeen was that it was ghetto and full of ghetto people. My understanding is that if a black person acts the way a white person would act, he has no problem with them. The moment they delve from the approved behavior, his disdain shows, if not publicly then privately.
On the other hand, he's talked about how one of the best police officers he's ever had the pleasure of working with was a woman. A black woman. A black woman who was gay. It sounds to me like that fallback that people have to prove they aren't racist, "My best friend is black!"
It was interesting to hear about schemas and stereotypes, especially with recent events, because I think a lot of times when talking to people about these news events, there are those who think all black men are "thugs" but when a white person does the same thing or worse, kills a bunch of people, they are labeled as a troubled soul. It's actually disheartening and frustrating to see.
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