Two weeks ago we had an event at the Nădlac cultural center

    There is a yearly practice of having the 12th grade
of the high school organize a show for the incoming 9th graders.
It is quite something and it had all types of activities. There were
talent contests, dancing routines, musical bands and there was
even a group called ‘body and soul’ that came from Bucharest.
This group has made music videos and had the dancers and
everything. Their videos are on MTV Romania and probably
MTV Europe.

   The premier activity of the night was that of choosing what would
be equivalent to a prom king and queen. All the students from the
9th grade participated and it is a combination of several
criteria that decides who will be the winners. Some of the criteria
is of course, looks, stage presence which entailed answering a
question, to name a few.

   I had an invitation to sit with the judges (there were 12 total). I
have a friend who was one of the judges so I had an inside scoop
to what was going on.

   After all the events the judges went to a room to tabulate the votes
and the culmination of the festivities was choosing the king and
queen for the year.

   It was pretty obvious who should win and in fact it was kind of more
than pretty obvious. I could tell that something wasn’t right as when
the judges returned my friend didn’t seem to be very happy. She said
“hang on a minute, then we’re out of here”. They made an
announcement an then we left. I asked her “what’s going on”? She
explained that she had a huge argument with the person who was
in charge of the judges.

   My friend explained that the girl that should have won, didn’t. I asked
her “was it the girl that was the obvious choice”? She said “yeah,
they chose another one”. I asked how come that happened. She said it
was because the girl is a Rroma (or Gypsy). I was shocked but not
surprised . My friend said that the actual results of the voting was 8
for the Rroma girl and 4 for others. When the head of the judges saw
the results she immediately said that there was no way. In fact she
directly said that there was no way a Rroma was going to win. So
my friend had quite an argument with her and said
that if the Rroma girl didn’t win at least most popular, that she would
get up on the stage, take the microphone and tell everyone what
happened. The lady head judge gave in and so the girl won most
popular.

   The Rroma girl deserved to win it all. She was one of the prettiest,
she was the surest of them all in answering her question. She was
truly the most popular as she received the loudest applause from
the crowd and the kids from her school. She is also the first in her
studies in all the ninth grade and she wants to study to become a
lawyer.

  Anyone’s ideal daughter, student or citizen in any community. We
would think that that would be enough considering there was no one
even close.

   Well, not where there is stereotyping and injustice due to people’s
origins. At this point I must say that not everyone was in agreement
with the head judge. Some people that knew what had happened were
as shocked as I was. Also at this point I want to state that it isn’t only
here that things like this happen. The whole world is full of similar
instances, it is only that I am here now and this is my community.

   It is interesting about stereotyping and it seems that many
stereotypes have basic similarities no matter where or who they
are. The Rroma population definitely has it’s share.

   The actual word ’stereotype’ is a word from printing press jargon,
it means that each copy is exactly the same. So in a people’s sense
everyone of a certain group is exactly the same. We know that it’s
not possible. This girl is really a stereotype of the group that is
stereotyping because they think that they are perfect. The girl
seems kind of perfect to me.

   My argument is how does a prejudice person react when there is
someone who blows their stereotypical opinions away. It seems
like no one has an answer to that. They continue to treat that
group the same. Shouldn’t they accept the person if they don’t
fit the stereotype?

   Being stereotyped is a frustrating thing and really destructive to
the will of someone who is just trying to do their best. How unfair
and unjust it is to be treated that way by other ’holy than thou
people’. Yeah there are social deviants in every social group and
that is the truth.

   It is good to see that this situation invoked discussion and with that
it could help change those types of mentality. People know what
they are taught and I feel that the head judge could be a result of
that. But in everyone’s life comes a time to use your own head and
change what is wrong.

   One of aspects of the Peace Corps that I enjoy is that I get to be in
places to see results of farm subsidies and how they keep the poor
farmers in developing countries poor. I also got to see the results
of malaria and poverty and how they kill. Things that people only
read about but don‘t see in action. And here I can see the results
of discrimination as it unfolds. To me that is the way to really
understand what things are truly about.

   I am going to end with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King’s
’I have a dream speech’. It is the line that said ‘I have a dream
that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they
will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character.’

   I am going to make a change in that sentence. I will write it
like this …

   ‘I have a dream that all peoples one day will live in a world where
they will not be judged by the color or their skin or the nature of
their culture but by the content of their character.’

   It seems like most people believe that it is idealistic and not
realistic to think in such a manner. I have to say that is
bull crap. The real truth is ... that is the way it ought to be ...
but we settle for less.