I’m Fat, so I don’t ‘fit’ in.
I’m Gay, so she doesn’t ‘like’ me anymore.
I’ve only got one arm, so people stare at me.
I wear a headscarf, so I’m a terrorist?
I’m black and wear a hoodie, so I’m a troublemaker…?
I’m HUMAN, are you okay?
Funny isn’t it? The way your view is automatically interpreted by what you see in front of you.
On television, on public transport, in the office, at the shop across the road, well actually no it isn’t funny at all.. If anything it’s the saddest view you have. Why is it that if somebody is disabled or slightly ‘different’ in regards to what society is used to, you steer away?
You’re shy, you get upset, you find it difficult to see, you feel sorry for them, you don’t ‘like’ it, this list could go on, yet none of would be the reality. I’ll tell you why majority of you do this, because society doesn’t show you them, society doesn’t accept them the way it should but portrays them as a ‘stereotype’ or ‘different to you’.
Why is that though? My mentality somehow cannot understand why this happens and most of all how we allow it. This makes you or me no better than the superficial and airbrushed images, plastered on wide-stretched billboards, thrown into your face as you sit in a queue of Friday rush hour traffic. Does it?
Over the weekend My sister booked us tickets for the special screening of a new Turkish film with the director, at Lee Valley Odeon cinema.
Director Mr Cagan Irmak gives a short and warm speech.
The lights dim and the film begins to play.
Wiping tears from my eyes the lights come back on.
What a film!
Such emotion and depth that you struggle to move from your seat.
You wish that more people were as real as the two lead characters in this society and world we live in.
Why? Because as one is homosexual and the other without arms and legs, they cling onto life in finding hope and a relationship that is so special – they become not only the best of friends but also like brothers.
I’m so moved that my brain goes into an overload of questions about what I just saw and actually how much closer we are to it, then we think we are. That’s the problem though isn’t it, you see the front cover of a glossy magazine and think you should be like that celebrity who’s been covered in make-up, airbrushed and photo-shopped in more places than you can count on one hand. Ever wondered why you haven’t seen a man in a wheelchair on a basketball poster? Or why a size 12 woman in a plain evening dress isn’t in the perfume advert going across the 149 bus?
Could it be because you aren’t seen as ‘okay’? All because society says so, unfortunately this seems like the only logical answer. “Image -a representation of the external form of a person or thing in art.” In your case, the first thought you have of a person when you look at them is how they really are. Well I’ll stick up my middle finger to that and give you a piece of mind along with it, because whether you’re black, white, man, woman, gay, disabled, special-needs, fat, thin, wearing designers or jogging bottoms it shouldn’t and honestly doesn’t matter. Before and after everything, you’re a human-being. You’re unique just like everyone of us and you reading this now – think how you would feel if you were one of these ‘stereotypes’ or didn’t ‘fit’ in society? Are you okay? No? Repeat after me, I’m OKAY! You’re okay, as are each and everyone of us. Remember your humanity and just how powerful it can be when you use it properly.