The next day was the first day of school. Shelby Bridges couldn’t go to sleep. All of the thoughts rushing through her head made her restless. After fidgeting with every knick knack in her room and attempting to watch TV, she decided to walk around and try to find something to do. As she was leaving her room, she noticed her closet door ajar and realized, “What am I going to wear!”, “What a bonehead mistake! It’s my first day of school and I forgot to pick out something to wear!” She rushed to her closet and immediately started reviewing her wardrobe. After considering the weather she settled on a tank top, hung it on her door, and finally passed out on her bed.

Meanwhile next door, Zaynab was thrilled; the next day was her first day of school also. She wanted to make sure she had everything packed up and equipped for her first day. So she went through her bag one last time. She wanted the first day to be amazing, so she couldn’t forget anything at home! Zaynab passed out on her bed around midnight.

6:00 AM came quick for Shelby, and her alarm rudely awoke her. With two hours to spare, she put on her tank top and that frilly skirt that she decided on the night before, flat ironed her long blonde hair, applied her makeup and rushed to the quad for her 8:45AM history class.

Shelby took a seat next to her best friend Melissa, and as she was slipping into the desk, another student entered the room. She was dressed in boot cut khakis, a long sleeved white tee, and covered her hair with a khaki colored piece of fabric. As the woman entered the room, Shelby whispered “I wonder if she’s bald!” The class responded with an uproar of laughter.

Zaynab’s alarm woke her from her dream 1 hour before her 8:45 AM History class. She washed her face, put on her long sleeve shirt, and boot cut khakis, and she straightened her long dark hair. Then she wrapped her tresses with tender care in her hijab. She was so anxious, and thoughts flooded her head “What if I don’t know anyone this year?” “What if they don’t like me?” Zaynab waited at the bus stop for the campus bus to pick her up from her apartment. She got to school, entered the gigantic lecture hall, and stood mortified and in pain as she heard a blonde girl in the middle of the room remark “I wonder if she is bald?”

We live in a society riddled with preconceptions and stereotypes. While it may be in human nature to classify and quantify the world around us, it does not excuse us from investigating these claims. Everyone has a preconceived idea of the probable personalities and beliefs of those who surround them. Unfortunately, or possibly quite fortunately, these conjectures are frequently wrong. How many times have you met someone in a class, or at work, and thought they would be a great friend only to find out they weren’t the same type of person you thought they were? How many times has that worked in reverse? (For the record, probably more than you’ll know, because you didn’t give most of these people a chance to prove your preconceptions wrong).

Belief systems, pastimes, and personality traits are not bound by geography or any other physical idiosyncrasy. Persians and Arabs may be Christian, Not every brown skinned person is African American and not every light skinned person is Anglo, just as not every hookah smoker is a pot head.

Different skin color, fashion sense, or religious belief does not extensively indicate who a person is. A hijab, the choice not to drink alcohol, or the decision not to eat animals slaughtered in mass is not equivalent with frumpy, lackluster, and wholesome. Anytime one uses superficial criteria to form a judgment, they are risking the possibility of gaining incite into another culture, and into the person they’re judging. A woman may choose to cover her hair, and not walk around with all of her assets on display, but that does not also mean that she doesn’t have interests and hobbies. The next time you see a well rounded, cultured hookah enthusiast enjoying a hookah on their patio, be hesitant to assume anything about their morals and ethics.