Dogsleds, Stereotypes and Stories

Yesterday, I pulled into the parking lot of a 7-11 to buy a newspaper. I parked next to a police cruiser and a mid-size SUV with what I'm pretty sure was a dog sled lashed to the roof. (I don't think I'd ever before seen a dogsled except in photographs. They're big -- especially lashed to the roof of a vehicle!) These were the only vehicles in the parking lot besides my van.

The cop was easy to spot. He was hanging out by the counter. He didn't seem to be buying anything, which made me wonder if something was up, but whatever it was, it apparently wasn't an emergency. He was leaning on the counter, thumbing through a magazine. I went looking for my paper.

Since Ethan was with me, I didn't bolt right out of the store after paying for the paper, as I normally would have done. He decided to take a meandering walk around the store before leaving. That was when I noticed that there was no one in the store who might own the dog sled. Hmm. Maybe they left the SUV here temporarily, I thought. Odd place to leave it, as there isn't much else within a convenient walk, but who knows?

As we exited the store, we passed the police officer again, who was now chatting with a middle aged black woman whom I hadn't noticed earlier. She looked like someone's young-ish grandma: hair salon-set with highlights, stylish but not new black swing coat, leopard print scarf, black leather boots suitable for Michigan winters, but with a dash of flair. Middle class, middle age, average black woman. Period. When I went outside and saw no new vehicles in the lot, I idly wondered where her car was.

Ethan was still being pokey, so I had just finished buckling him into his car seat and was heading around to my door when the woman exited the store. By now, you've surely guessed that she got into the dog sled SUV, right? Right. I was so taken aback that when the thought entered my head to ask her about the dog sled, I shushed it. I think I even stared a little. Huh.

Don't worry, this isn't a post about "white guilt" over the fact that it didn't even remotely cross my mind that she might be Dog Sled Woman. Frankly, I suspect even black folks would have been surprised, and for the same (or substantially similar) reasons I was. Rather, I fascinating to notice how a mix of factors played together to thoroughly exclude from my mind the possibility that this middle-aged Black-woman-next-door might drive an SUV with a dog sled on top. So thoroughly was the possibility excluded, that I speculated on unlikely reasons why there was an owner-less SUV in the parking lot *and* a woman apparently without a vehicle! Why did I not at least entertain the more obvious conclusion that they belonged together? Curious.

It wasn't just her race, though that was a factor. When I think "musher", white people and people native to the Arctic come most readily to mind. That said, if she had been still black, but 25 and dressed in Patagonia pants and an anorak, I'm pretty sure I would have put her with the SUV right away. I would have been mildly surprised, given my pre-conceptions regarding the races of dog sled mushers, but not shocked, and certainly not oblivious to the possibilities.

Gender was another factor in so far as it inter-played with her manner of dress and her age. A man in his 50's, no matter how he was dressed, would have seemed a more likely candidate for dog sledding, I have to admit. A white woman in her 50's would probably have to be dressed in Patagonia pants and an anorak for me to catch on. You see how the permutations of race/age/dress/class could go on.

I took away a greater awareness of how we weave together subtle information to create meaning, context and story, even about people we are hardly noticing. (My friend Su writes eloquently about this subject as it relates to perceptions of her mixed-race family.) Sometimes this can be pernicious -- we have all slighted, marginalized, misunderstood, or discriminated against someone based on a set of characteristics we probably didn't even notice we were noticing. The tendency to create story and meaning from the barest threads is so ingrained in us, how could we not? Often, however, no harm is done. And every once in a while, we get a glimpse of the real story beyond our assumptions. If we are lucky, we find it is much more interesting than we could have imagined.