<I make sure I smile at them, because I know from research studies that people are less likely to smile and more likely to avert their eyes when people have disabilities, or are ugly or overweight.>
It sounds a very superficial, insincere smile. Why not smile if you feel like smiling? I know Americans are taught to smile [whether they feel it or not], but as with Condit, the smiles too often are a grotesque grimace. Checkout operators who are told to smile don't look as though they are smiling and I would prefer that they simply be how they actually feel. A false smile is more of a barrier than an emotional expression of welcome.
Maybe you can deliberately turn on a smile when you don't feel it. That seems patronizing to me. Spot an ugly, fat, cripple and grin because research says most people don't!
I got sick of the subject because I know it won't go anywhere.
Before I go, I saw a really funny Oprah Winfrey show, you know, that person of colour on the telly. Well, she had a whole lot of different ethnic women on the show. They were all going on about their cultures and how special their cultures were and so on. There were all sorts of women - not all sorts in the real sense, but all sorts from a race point of view; Chinese American, Indian American, African American, Person of No Colour American, Native American American, Irish Person of No Colour American, Vietnamese American, Cablinasian American.
The funny thing was that to me, they were all just American women. The big hair, the make up, the false smiles, the clothes, the accent, the language, the behaviour. They had a cultural homogenity of which they were obviously unaware. The very claim to individual cultures and ethnic bliss was part of the culture!
The idea was to showcase the different cultures, presumably to celebrate diversity and tolerance and stuff. All I saw was a row of identical women and a showcase of American TV Culture.
Mqurice |
