Anyone who says they don't judge a book by it's cover is full of a Charlie Weis bowel movement.  Everyone does everyday, in every situation, with anything that they view or see.  It doesn't mean that you're materialistic or egotistical; it means you are human and your brain comprehends what it sees, like it's supposed to do.  I don't know if it's just the politically correct thing, but judging based on appearance or what you see on the outside is supposedly one of the worst things.  Not to me.  If a book's cover doesn't look good then why read the book?  If a trailer for a movie doesn't look interesting then why go see it?  If a single for an album doesn't sound good then why listen?  There's a reason we judge people by how they look or what they say or what they're doing; it's because that's what we see and that's what a person puts out there for us to see.  If you're wearing goth clothes I'll probably think you're a freak and if you're wearing shoulder pads then I'll probably think you're a football player.  To most people this seems like a problem and how biased is created.  To me it's just how people should live life.  I'm not going to worry if I know exactly who the person is or if I thought wrong of a person some point in time.  We think wrong of people everyday.

So this finally brings me to the sports content of this piece.  I'm sure you're thinking where is he getting to with this.  I'm already bored.  Look at that, all you've read is the first paragraph of my piece and you already have thoughts about the whole thing.  Shame on you!  The point is that in everyday life, what we see on television or on Sportscenter is what we know of athletes and their persona.  We not only judge them by their actions off the field, but we judge them even more by their actions on the field.  Most of the time the greater the athlete is the higher we think of them as a person.  We don't truly know anything about them except what we see, read, and hear.  And this is where Tiger Woods comes in!  Tiger, Tiger, Tiger!  What were you thinking most of us say.  Most of us think he let his family down, his friends down, and his fans down.  We think this way because Tiger Woods was created to be something he isn't.  An almost perfect person.  Tiger was the black guy from Stanford that defied all odds and dominated a white man's game.  Tiger Woods had a wonderful family and had a dad who taught him to play golf at such a young age.  He was the perfect gentleman and always had the proper things to say to the media.  Tiger was seen as being as genuine and perfect as Oprah and a man who could have more power then Barack Obama.  Were we duped? Maybe, but partially it's Tiger's fault, partially the media's fault, and partially our fault.  I can't really blame anyone for thinking this way because that's all we knew and saw.  We wouldn't think in a million years that Tiger could pull this scandal off, but it happened.  We all judged the book by it's cover and we got towards the end of the book thinking it was the greatest thing ever and the last chapter ruined the whole story.

I don't really want people to change their ways and think that we have to learn about everyone and everything so that we truly know what's going on. No, I just want people to be aware of how often we judge things and why we judge them.  It's okay to judge; opinions, right or wrong, are a part of life.  So be opinionated, take a stand for what you believe in, but always remember that no matter how much you know about someone or something that it may not always be what it seems to be.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (2)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment