Re: FBOFW 9/30/05

On 2005-08-30, J.D. Baldwin <INVALID_SEE_SIG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> In the previous article, Peter B. Steiger <see.sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>> I have been pulled aside every single time I have flown in the past
>> four years, no doubt a coincidence and not related to the fact that
>> I often go a few days between shaves, cut my hair about once every
>> three years, and wear comfortable (read: t-shirt and/or sweatshirt,
>> jeans) rather than business attire. Last time I went from Denver to
>> Dallas, one other guy was pulled out of our group boarding the
>> plane. We looked at each other and saw that we both had long hair,
>> and just started laughing about the "random" selection.
>
> Though I don't do so anymore, I used to grow a beard in the winter. I
> could probably write a sociology thesis on my observations -- I was
> treated *completely* differently by nearly every stranger I
> encountered, from new people at work to store clerks. Often, people
> who first met the bearded me who then saw me clean-shaven for the
> first time could barely contain their excitement. They didn't say it
> this way, but the clear theme was, "Gee, I didn't know you were a
> normal person!" (Obviously, this only applies to people who knew me
> in the most superficial way.)

Malcolm Gladwell writes about this in BLINK, his wonderful book on snap
judgements. A few years before the writing, he let his hair grow long and
unruly. Suddenly and for the first time in his life, cops were "randomly"
stopping him in the street for questioning.

Gladwell took a test that shows unconscious associations, and found that
he's somewhat biased to connect black people to negative attitudes. What
makes that especially interesting is that his mother is Jamaican.

I strongly reccomend BLINK.
--
Carl Fink carl@xxxxxxx
If you attempt to fix something that isn't broken, it will be.
-Bruce Tognazzini
.

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