"People say ‘Are you Goths?’ They always ask if we’re Wiccan or worship Satan or anything. And we’re like, no. We’re just normal people. We just dress differently. They also ask if we do a lot of drugs and stuff. But we don’t. I mean you can look like this and dress like this for fun. They think we’re always depressed, but we’re not."
So if there was one thing you could say to all those people who were like stereotyping you, what would that be?
"Fuck off."
Is there anything else you could tell them about yourself?
"Don’t look on the outside, don’t judge a book by its cover."
"I’m from Austin, Texas, doing this project. Before I put on a suit and tie, people were treating me like I’m homeless. They would walk further away on the sidewalk, so I’d be like ‘Hello, good afternoon’. Never begging, just like saying something nice. But they’d just walk by without even looking in this direction. The craziest one was in Nashua, I was sitting there drawing and I saw some girl. She obviously liked what I was drawing and so she tried to come over and her friend grabbed her arm and was like ‘Dude, he’s homeless.’ I was like, if I was homeless that would be a really messed up thing to say. Just because someone’s homeless they’re not going to check out what they have?"
And the tie and jacket undoes that?
"Pretty much. I mean, I still get asked if I’m homeless."
Do you feel like there’s still prejudice and stereotyping going on?
"Yeah, definitely."
And what would you want to say to people who are prejudiced and look at you and see whatever you feel like you’re stereotyped as?
"I would like to say they need to get to know people, their background and how they live, things like that. That way they get to know them better."
"You would like to be treated fairly for who you are, not for the color of your skin."
Hebron, Palestine
Palmyra, Syria
"You know even though everybody can feel comfortable with their views of people, when we all get together [we see that] we’re all still alike. You know what I’m saying? Like we can all laugh and joke and even though I may normally just only talk with black folks, but when we all get together, we’re all still just people. That’s the hard part, you’ve got to find a common ground and something that we all agree on and we all feel good about."
So what would be like a good thing that you could think of that could like—
"Help bring people together? I think food and music does. Food and music brings people together. At work, I can say that when we have like potlucks and people come out, and music—- I think food and music, you’ve just got to find more things that bring people together than keep them apart. I think that’s the catch."
Community Organizers are in Hebron after a very tense day during which the Israeli Defense Forces evicted a Jewish settler family illegally occupying a Palestinian home. They work with OneVoice, seeking to amplify the voices of both sides of the Israel Palestine conflict to bring about a peaceful two state solution.
"It’s known as the Star of David, but long before it was the Star of David, this was an ancient Hindu symbol. I have a doctor who is Jewish. He teases me when I wear it. He says, ‘What are you doing with this devil worship symbol?’ This is a devil worship symbol, too.
My mother’s white, Jewish. The other day my sister, she said, ‘You think you’re white.’ And she’s whiter than me. She’s much more fairer than me. ‘You think you’re white. Jew boy, Jew boy, Jew boy.’ That’s what she said to me.
Your genes are very funny you know. You’ve got your genes and your environment. I was not raised around white people; I was raised around people of my kind. But I got my mother’s genes.
I came to America when I was three years old from Jamaica. I was raised in North Carolina, very isolated. Most of the people down there, my race they mixed with Native Americans.
I don’t feel like I get stereotyped. Maybe some people do, but I don’t have that feeling. I really don’t feel like it. But I suppose many people are.”
