Profiles lead to misunderstandings, missed opportunities

So I Was Thinking

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re a pseudo-intellectual liberal who secretly only is at JMU because you didn’t get into UVa. Naturally, because only such people read the opinion page.

And I’m a Republican using a pseudonym as I vent my secret feminist rage before I settle down to be barefoot and pregnant when I find my husband among the fraternity brothers. Naturally, because only people like me would be brave enough to write amongst these pages.

But I’m not those things and chances are neither are you, but because we go to JMU, we might not guess that about each other.

Last summer, I was walking with a friend — a newcomer to JMU — when he told me that JMU was very much a “profile school.” “What,” I asked in defense, “is that supposed to mean?”

Well, basically, it meant that everyone here could easily be pushed into some category that might be based on his or her appearance, hometown, race, socioeconomic status or hobbies.

Some of these profiles include the athlete, the Greek brother or sister, the overachiever, the underachiever, the hippie-protester, the writers, the quiet folk, the snobs, the politicians and the minorities.

The more I thought about this idea, the more convinced I became of its existence, something I had never noticed before. I suddenly questioned the authenticity of everyone around me.

All of the girls who carried the Vera Bradley diaper bags I assumed had money and were of lesser intelligence, all of those football players, were here with a free ride because the muscles in their arms were bigger than the ones in their heads, and everyone from Northern Virginia had money, and roots built in arrogance.

I was so caught up in these ugly generalizations that I was bitter — in the usual friendliness of JMU I only saw a façade. People, I thought, held doors because it was expected — just like their personalities, they had a whole other JMU personality to live up to as well. I thought my friends and I were the only people who couldn’t be profiled.

And then one day, as I walked toward Warren Hall, I smiled at a tall, lanky guy carrying an easel and a sketch pad — obviously one of those granola-vegan art majors, I thought. The guy seemed stunned that I had smiled at him and he gave me a weird, astonished stare and then smiled, ever so slightly, back at me.

Just which type of person did he profile me as? I obviously had a profile, too, and it was one which meant I wouldn’t smile at someone like him. As I watched him walk away over my shoulder, I noticed a patch on his book bag which read: There’s nothing wrong with gay Republicans.

Quite a surprise.

Slowly, revelations such as this occurred to me: A girl in my communications class — the one with the diaper bag purse and fake pearls — explained she was a waitress who worked hard to pay her own tuition and sorority fees. I was the resident adviser to a passionate, sweet, intelligent, Al Green-loving football player who played football so that he could go to school and not the other way around. And my own best friend, a proud Northern Virginian, proved to be not only down to earth, but frugal as well.

Perhaps JMU is a profile school — on the surface, anyway. But I think that if you take a look past the images that seem to summarize our students — parties, extremist evangelicals and, yes, even Vera Bradley bags — you’ll notice that there is a diverse crowd of intelligent, fun and ambitious students who fit into many categories — not just the stereotypical ones. Maybe I had sold myself short of knowing some truly interesting people. Maybe you’re selling yourself short, too.

Ashley Lusk is a senior communications studies major.