I call this "Attack of the Giant Assumptions"
I was in a class, and the teacher opened with one of those darn icebreaker activities. This one was a kind of "Bingo", with questions in squares. The questions were mostly things like "Someone who has three or more kids", or "Someone who has run a marathon". You had to circulate around and find those people, and they signed the correct box (did that make sense?).
First, there is one African-American woman in the class. As soon as the teacher said "Go", everyone else was swarming around her. The reason? One of the questions was "Someone who knows what Juneteenth is". I couldn't believe one student actually said, "I'm sure you'd know what that is!"
Another question was "Someone who knows what a Seder is". People were searching all over for someone to sign that one, and I'm just sitting there, sort of amused. Finally, I spoke up, and I cannot be sure, but I think someone really said "You don't look Jewish"
. If I'd really heard that clearly, I might have snapped back, "Yeah, neither did Sammy Davis Jr. and Marilyn Monroe." What do Jews look like, anyway?
What if the Black woman hadn't been born in America, or otherwise didn't know what Juneteenth is? Assumptions, anyone?