Stereotyped Essay, Research Paper

Today teenagers are stereotyped everyday. Stereotyping has become a natural

reaction by the older generation when they see a teenager that is dressed

different or acts different than what they used to at that age. Their idea of

what a person should dress like or act like is compleatly different from the

ideas of teenagers. I have found out the hard way over the last few years.

Teenagers are stereotyped all of the time.

For instance, I went to Wal-Mart to get a job and people doing the employing

had all of the people who were getting applications go to the back room and

watch a film. Basicly the filmwas about the proper way to dress act and even how

long your facial hair could be. One of the employers basicly singled me out and

said,"I am going to use this young man here for an example. The pants he

has on are to baggy." The jeans I had on at that time were actually not

baggy at all because I was trying to dress nice for the interveiw. "He will

have to shave off his gotee and sideburns." Then he went on and talked

about thier dress code and how the employees were expected to act. Then he did

somthing I did not believe. He said, " All of you will have to take a drug

test." then he looked strait at this kid and said,"Some of you may not

pass." After that I had gotten enough abuse for one day so I just got up

and walked out.

Another example of teenagers being stereotyped is when teens are in a group.

Just because they are standing there the older generation thinks they are

drinking, using drugs, or just up to no good in general. For instance, the

police in my hometown will not let more than two cars of teens congragate in one

place at a time. I do not think that is fair because if you want to stop and

talk to someone you have to wait until one of the cars leave.

Teenagers are sometimes thought guilty of things just for the simple fact

that they are teenagers. For example I had a wreck with an older woman a few

years ago. I was coming up to a stop sign so I slowed down. When I got to the

sign I did the same stop that everybody does at signs on back streets, the one

where you slow down almost to a stop but not quite then you go. This stop sign

was a little different in that there are bushes all the way down the side of the

street, so it is kind of hard to see. So I looked and looked again and still saw

no one so I went. Just as I start to pull through a car slams into the passenger

side of my car. I was driving a 1978 Chevrolet Caprice Classic, it was a big,

bulky car. I was hit by a 1991 Pontiac Grand Am, which is a tiny car compared to

mine. The speed limit in this spot is 15 miles per hour because it is a school

zone. Now that I have the setting established I will continue the story. This

tiny car hits my "tank" of a car and knocks it over about 5 feet.car

that hit me bounced off the front passenger fender and hit the back fender hard

enough to bend the back wheel. So this car bounces off my back fender and goes

about 15 feet further up ahead, tires screeching the whole way. So I jump out of

my car to see if the other person is o.k. I run up to the window of the other

car in time to see an older woman reaching across the seat to get her insurence

out of her glove box.When I knocked on the window to see if she was o.k. she

abruptly sat up and said her neck was hurt. Now lets think about this for a

second, she was leaning over and streaching to reach the glove box, also when I

knocked on her window she sat up so quickly that if she had a neck injury she

would have been sreaming in agony. I could not belive that she was actually

saying she had a neck injury after what I saw her doing. I was so mad I just had

to walk off. I felt like grabing my neck, falling down, and saying I can’t feel

my legs, but I refreaned. The other issue I want to address is that is the speed

she had to be gonig to do what she did. She definatly had to be going well over

the speed limit to do the damage she did to my car and her car as well. her car

was turned around facing my car about 15 feet away. She knocked my car 5 feet

strait sideways. If 15 miles per hour does that I would hate to get hit at 30

miles per hour. A police car finally came and the woman told the police woman

she needed an ambulance. She called in an ambulance and they took the

"injured" woman away. Then the police woman came over and wrote me a

ticket for running a stop sign. That I understood but when I tried to tell her

that the woman had to be speeding she just gave me a dumb look and went on doing

what she was doing before I asked her the question. That made me so mad because

she didn’t even ask my side of the story, she didn’t even ask me if I ran the

stop sign. The next day I even saw the woman at work, she was not even wearing a

neck brace. Our insurance company called a few days later and said that she is

trying to sue us. That made me even more mad. Luckly we had good insurence so

she didn’t have a chance, but it still made me very angry. I know many instances

where teens got tickets that adults would get away with.

Teenagers are often stereotyped and discriminated against nowdays. I think it

is kind of sad that teenagers and the older generations can’t get along just

because of age or the way we dress, act, or even the music we listen to. I think

that some people refuse to beleive things have change that much since they were

teenagers. Today people are starting to realize that all teens are not bad just

because some of them go out and get drunk or do drugs. As hard as it might be to

belive alot of teens don’t even want to drink or get high, they just think there

are better ways to spend their time. Take me for instance, I am so laid back and

willing to do things people are afraid to do that I would hate to see what I

would do if I did drink or get high, I would probably do something that would

kill me. All I am trying to do is just to let people know just how much teens

are stereotyped and discrminated against just because of their age. Not all

teens are like the ones you see on televison or in the papers. Teenagers do more

good things that go unnoticed than things they do that end up on the front page

of the newspaper or on the local news.