Certified Book Cover Judge

We've all done it. We've all been there. For the most part, I'm almost certain people are fairly willing to share their life stories... but instead, we become the best judges known to mankind.

I'm currently in a course where we've discussed our life stories in as much or as little detail as desired. Many tears were shed, many eyes were opened, and many connections or shared feelings were expressed.

Something that sticks out to me the most, now mind you, we're all in the Master of Social Work program, which means we've probably all had experiences that had become formative in our lives. But for some reason, I was apparently pegged as the face of privilege. Wow. I knew that people assumed I was from a fancy background. I've had people tell me they thought I grew up in an all-American-white-picket-fence-family in Denair... Yes, they specifically would mention Denair. Now Denair, CA is a small nowhere town (no offense)... but once they closed the barbecue spot, there was no longer a reason to go to Denair.

I get that I'm a blonde, Caucasian female, and that I try to carry myself with confidence... but talk about constantly being shadowed by assumptions.

After sharing my story of the various traumas, hardships, and silencers in my life, I had multiple classmates apologize to me for assuming I was the face of privilege. While the color of my skin has provided me with privilege, and sometimes being a blonde female has, too, (let's be real, I probably should've received more tickets than I've actually received), I did not grow up with a silver spoon.

Long story short, and a brief lesson on intersectionality (i.e. my favorite sociological theory)... Don't judge a book by it's cover. She may look white, blonde, and female... but there's more to her than that. She experiences different things. You may see white, and assume privilege, but add in female, she's experienced oppression. You see blonde, and perhaps you think ditzy, but she's in grad school and works as an executive assistant. You see young (ish), and think naive, but she's traveled the world, studied, and worked in various fields for many years.

Intersectionality is literally an intersection. Think of a street nearby, I'll say McHenry Avenue, because I'm in Modesto at the moment. McHenry is one of the busiest and well-known streets in Modesto. It's known for cruising (I think it's actually cruisin', but I'm not cool, so I always use proper suffixes). If you've seen American Graffiti, you've seen McHenry. Anyway, McHenry is a long road, it's city on one end and country on the other. Imagine going down the road, you could point out landmarks on the street. However, if someone is coming from a different direction, they may see different landmarks than you. Now let's drive down to "Five Points"... a popular intersection in Modesto, where McHenry, J Street, Needham, Downey, and 17th Streets intersect. Because we've added in all of these other streets, McHenry is still McHenry, but there's so much more to it. What looks like McHenry is not just McHenry. You have to think of all of the streets that connect, which change the overall appearance and layout of McHenry. That's intersectionality.

So next time you see a book that looks basic, it might be a masterpiece.