What is Normal?

 

What is normal? In “Body Ritual Among the Nacerima”, anthropologist Horace Miner talks ironically about how Americans are quick to judge and condemn the customs of other cultures, especially Native American ones. In reality, Americans disrespect many more cultures of Asians, African-Americans, Hispanics, and beyond. Hawaiians are belittled for eating raw fish when the process to harvest it is much more clean and humane than eating steaks. Asians are made fun of for speaking their elegant native languages in public. African-American culture is seen as “ghetto” and even “dangerous” rather than beautiful. But American culture is heavily influenced by all of these things we see as “strange”. How would we feel if eating burgers was seen as “disgusting”? Or if wearing jeans was known as “trashy”? Or even if speaking English in public was deemed “embarrassing”? Americans are so quick to judge because we only know the customs of our own culture as the norm. So what would happen if the roles were reversed? Even in our own culture we, as a society, look down upon the people who stand out from the crowd, who don’t conform to other people’s ideas of how things should be. Activists, street artists, anyone who marches to the beat of their own drum. It is a natural human tendency to be curious of those who deviate from the crowd, but is it really necessary to be so judgmental? Let’s be more accepting of people who are themselves entirely and unapologetically.