Check it at The Door

What do we carry with us? What do we take into classrooms, dining halls and dorms? How are we perceived by others and to what extent do we validate that perception? I have no idea what any of these answers are.

If you look closely at the — ahem — “Middlebury experience,” I am sure many of you can pick up on the constant question of identity that all Middlebury students face at some point. We are constantly trying to define ourselves via our major, our interests, our need to be involved in everything. After two years here, though, I wonder how much of that we create and how much people create for us.

I went out in a button-down shirt and tie last weekend. I asked a girl what she thought my social upbringing was like. She responded that it was likely that my grandparents had been wealthy. I repeated this at other times in jeans and flannel and people responded that they could not tell. This did not surprise me, even if the scientific accuracy of my tiny social study was iffy at best. I have to ask the question then, if people make judgments on what I dress alone can I ever check it at the door so to speak? Or is perception impossible to escape?

There are environments on this campus where we approach the issue of ill-conceived judgment. Certain classes I have taken where who you are as a person is entirely based on what you say. It is sterile in some sense, but takes perception out of the equation. You are judged on how academically proficient you are and nothing else. Not a bad way to be at an elite liberal arts college.

Any humanities student can attest to the opposite. Who you are, your stories and experiences are not only valid but emphasized, asked for and constantly sought after. There are merits to this, too. We learn from the diversity of our class (if it exists) and benefit from others’ backgrounds and lives.

I worry, though: how do we balance the sterility of the first without making implicit bias if peoples’ stories are shared? Or, more importantly, if their stories aren’t shared? I worry that our ability to “check it at the door” is an illusion, that it can’t be escaped and we are forever stuck making assumptions based on gender, skin color, clothing choice or accent.

It is murky water. Identity should be something we can positively embrace but too often it is something negatively projected onto us. Nobody is immune from this. If you had just met me you could likely glean that I am white and male before I had anything to say, and, to the world, that might be enough. You might notice the cross around my neck and infer a Catholic upbringing and that would certainly give people some natural bias.

Now I am not looking for pity here, but, from those few details, which are essentially beyond my power to conceal, barriers are constructed. It makes it difficult to convey that I consider myself a feminist, for instance. We can assume what people are not just about as much as we can assume what they are.

So I do not think we can just check it at the door, as much as we would like to. We are not color blind, gender-blind or any other kind of blind even if it was convenient to say we are. All of us are guilty on some level of projecting identity onto others, whether they are strangers or our closest friends. How do we get past this? How do we affirm ourselves positively and allow others the freedom to do so?

A lot of it comes down to just being less judgmental. Smiling more? Saying hello more? The ability to make fun of ourselves, to laugh at our flaws and not be convinced that our community will immediately see that as weak or unintelligent is never taught in a classroom. So I am telling you now, relax, talk about it, and do not take yourself so seriously.

We cannot check ourselves at the door because nobody is comfortable enough to do it. We do not let each other do it. We point to who and what they are as justifications for their actions and words. We should really just let their actions and words speak for themselves. So I encourage you to bring it down a notch. Don’t assume things of collared-shirted “bros”, tight-jeaned “hipsters” or particularly opinionated “feminists.” Let people have the ability to check it at the door if they want.