It may not be right. It may not be fair, but it is the reality that we live in, and that, we cannot escape. Everything in our culture, except for a few well known clichés, gears us to judging by how someone looks and not on the content of their character.
Pretty women get fewer driving related tickets. Taller men get better paying jobs, more promotions and are elected president more often than their shorter counterparts. We talk about how women dress regardless of their position in society. Yes, she is a senator and super smart, but did you see what she was wearing?
There are entire websites dedicated to celebrities and the way they look. Who wore it best? Is this fashionable or horrible? What’s with the ball cap? It is ridiculous, and yet, there is no escape.
This is America, and you can do what you want. However, you need to realize that there are consequences for your choices and those consequences can be life-changing or life-ending. If you choose to dress like a thug, then you will be perceived and treated like a thug, even if you are a doctor.
The Unabomber wore a hoodie. At the Boston Marathon, anyone in a white ball cap or who was carrying a backpack was a suspect. Anyone going to a job interview not dressed appropriately or better for the job isn’t going to get hired. It isn’t right, but that is the way it is.
I want more than anything to believe that looks do not matter to me. I want to believe that I am able to overlook the fact that someone is obese, or that his pants are down around mid-butt level or that it isn’t how she looks but how she writes.
Unfortunately, even through my self-awareness, I find that I fall into the same trap again and again. I get drawn into the debate about beauty even when I want to compliment some other aspect of the woman. I watch television shows based on the attractiveness of the lead female. I initiate conversations based on the same criterium.
We want to believe that looks don’t matter. We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. We should be able to separate people by something other than what they are wearing, or the number of tattoos that they have or the color of their skins.
Yet, our entire culture tells us something else. It tells us that beauty is related to goodness, youth and intelligence. It tells us that beauty is related to love. It tells us that beauty will somehow see through our own shortcomings even if we are beasts.
I don’t know how to change it. Part of me even thinks that judging based on looks isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The only thing that I am sure of is that I do judge people by how they look, and that’s not pretty.