Some people meet me and start to think, "Wow, she's super Type A," or "why is she such a perfectionist? Does she ever rest?". I always wore my "perfectionism" as a badge of honor- I am hardworking, I am diligent, I am intelligent. But if you really know me you know that it's only part of who I am. I would even argue that some of those attributes were formed as a defense mechanism against racism and sexism in our society. Let me explain, but before I do that I want to say that this is all from my own experience, and the "rules" that I've observed seemed to be present for me in those locations, times, cultures, etc.
When I was younger people would often comment, "Oh you are so smart!" As if it was surprising that a little mixed race girl could be intelligent; as if that was not the "normal" that they were used to. I was always super uncomfortable with that type of "compliment", and for a long time I thought it was just because I've always been a little bit awkward. As I've gotten older I realized that I was uncomfortable with the assumption that it was out of the ordinary for someone like me, brown and female, to be intelligent and able to learn things quickly. What did these people expect of me, if my intelligence was what surprised them?
Is the assumption that because I'm a girl that I can't be as smart as you expect? Or is it that because I'm not a blonde, blue-eyed, fair skinned person that I could be as smart, or smarter, than your expectations? I think it's a bit of both.
As a child I always worked to learn as much as I could and then try to demonstrate that; part of that is my natural state but part of it was learned. As I went through school I realized, through some pretty overt and some less obvious incidents, that it was an expectation that if you weren't totally white you just wouldn't be as smart as a white person. I grew up moving around a lot, so I was able to experience a lot of different regional American cultures. Some areas we lived in were more liberal and others were more conservative. Some places had palpably racist cultures while some had more covert or subtle racism. Overall the messaging to me has always been that dominant white culture will expect you to be less intelligent if you are not part of dominant white culture/not white presenting. And if you happened to be female, then the expectation was even lower, regardless of your skin color.
Knowing this fueled me to constantly prove people wrong. They would initially see a little dark haired, olive-skinned girl who was quiet and reserved, but I would try to find any opportunity to show them that I was smart, that I had potential. The only way I could usually demonstrate this was through my school work. Grades meant the world to me, being assigned to the "advanced" reading groups, the "smarter" math class- all of these things I would work for and collect as tokens of my self-worth so I could show them off to the authority figures in my life as if to say "Look, I am MORE than you expected of me. I'm BETTER than what you thought I was". I had seen their initial judgement of me, and how that judgment had been detrimental to others around me, and I was doing what I could do keep that from being a shared life-sentence.
I have to pause here and say that I would have been much less successful at this if I didn't have parents who were supportive and could foster my learning and growth as much as they could while also having jobs and adult things to worry about. It also helps that I have a mother who already knew what I was facing having lived through a lot of it herself growing up on a reservation surrounded by towns that were predominantly white and biased against the native peoples near them.
Another few things I learned about dominant culture that shaped the decisions I made for myself were:
1. Non-white people are dirty
2. Non-white people are lazy.
3. Non-white people are not trustworthy.
Because of these things I became fastidious; I couldn't have people thinking I was dirty! This was reinforced by my own mother because a common stereotype when she was growing up was the "dirty Indian", so she also became extremely clean in her personal appearance as well as how she kept her home. When I was young it was always a priority to make sure that my sister and I never the left the house in dirty clothes or even looked slightly unkempt- hair always clean and combed, outfits always crisply ironed and matching (it was the late 80's/early 90's so of course EVERY PART of our outfits matched). I internalized that and as I got older I would never leave the house if I wasn't fully dressed, hair and makeup done. That's since relaxed a bit, but I still prefer to not go out, even for a quick errand, unless I'm somewhat presentable.
Because of the above I worked extremely hard at everything I did; I never wanted to be accused of being lazy.
Because of the above I took loyalty, fairness, and honesty very seriously as I didn't want to be thought of as untrustworthy.
There is a whole lot of unseen work that non-white people have to do just to be seen as "normal" and then we get called out for it as if it's supposed to be a compliment. We are being told, "See, you aren't like them, you are better because you are more like us," which in and of itself is such a messed up message to send to someone. If we do something that they expect of us, then we are reinforcing those racist tropes, but if we break out and surprise them then we are told we are an exception to the stereotype, but the trope still remains. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. And don't even get me started on the double standards that exist between dominant white culture and minorities. That may have to be a whole separate post.
These stupid stereotypes also cause a lot of infighting within minority cultures. I've had other native people tell me that I think I'm better than them because I don't live on a reservation, because I speak "proper" English, because (insert here). My mom has had the same things told to her as well. Because we figured out how to work within the dominant system so that we could lessen the burden of racist stereotypes on ourselves we are now an "enemy" to some; part of the system that keeps them down. It's a hard place to be. And I know people of other minority races and cultures that feel this same way and deal with these complexities.
So, no, I don't really think that I am "Type A" purely by birth. It has been a lifetime of having to learn what was expected and then having to exceed that expectation to be, not even seen, but respected as a human being. It's exhausting.
