Last night, as usual I watched one of my favorite TV series, Nova. It dealt with how one group of people makes assumptions about another group, using varying methods to justify their beliefs or prejudices, using “experts” who may or may not know what they’re talking about, but like all lies espoused by narrow minded people, the louder the lie is told the more likely people will believe that lie.
The program dealt with how African American people have been negatively affected with their health from medical professionals, called “Critical Condition.” It reached its zenith in 2020 when the Pandemic reared its ugly head and people of color were most affected by the Corona virus than white people. These people also were less willing to have vaccinations because they’ve been lied to so many times by doctors and the government that they rather take their chances not to be vaccinated.
Assumptions are what people think of other people, mostly falsehoods that are perpetuated by one’s own set of beliefs. As Sherwood Anderson wrote in Winesburg, Ohio, beliefs or passions are grotesques that invariably negatively affect one group of people over another group based on that group’s preconceived notions.
In my own short life I have dealt with assumptions based on me. Because I was born with a cleft lip and pallet, schools in East Wenatchee assumed I was not just physically challenged but mentally challenged as well and placed in Special Education where I was thrown three years back. My mother who also had the same birth defect, rarely if ever went to school. When she came to live with her aunt in San Francisco, she was fourteen and barely had a second-grade education. Her mother taught her to read and write.
That’s just the beginning. I was consistently denied promotions to higher positions including leadership based on assumptions that I wasn’t capable or looked as if I had leadership ability, again based on my mode of speaking. Since my stroke I was denied better opportunities based on my physical abilities, assuming I was an invalid.
People now ask me with hope in their voices when am I finally going to retire? They now assume I’m too old to work and must be placed out to pasture. I hope one day I can show these people how far off their assumptions were when I become that successful writer I dream of being.
Jerry Schellhammer 