My usual winter coat is a black trenchcoat. Originally I bought it because I needed a long coat for standing out at the bus stop in subzero weather and because the range of color options at the store was black, white, or hideously ugly tan. Oh, and did I mention that I bought this coat at the height of the Trenchcoat Mafia hysteria? I was aware that my image would undergo a bit of a shift, but that didn't change the fact that I needed a long coat and this one was on sale.
But from the first day I started wearing my coat to school, the difference in the way strangers treated me was really striking. People who hadn't thought twice about plowing into me in the hall the day before were giving me an incredibly wide berth. I used to experiment with walking in the hallway with and without my black trenchcoat, and when I wore my coat, people wouldn't come within a foot of me. The coat gave me a sense of power -- after all, at 5'1", my presence doesn't tend to be intimidating. Naturally, I was pleased that I wasn't getting slammed into on my way to class, but I was absolutely reveling in my newfound image.
Then one day, as I was leaving a pep rally, someone stepped on my foot. I, being used to hallway abuse, shrugged it off and kept walking without another thought, but then I heard the guy who'd stepped on me say, "Oh, great, now she's going to shoot me." And somehow hearing aloud the feelings that I'd earlier enjoyed inspiring forced me to think about whether I really wanted to be feared.
I decided that instead of trying to exist under and encourage the typical trenchcoat stereotypes, I'd do my best to rewrite them to fit better the trenchcoat wearers I knew, who are generally a fine group of people (and even the one jerk isn't homicidal). So I began smiling more at the people I passed to try to set them at their ease. I stuck a cloth rose in my lapel, but it got too worn and I traded it for a rose sticker in its place. If I could whistle, I would. When I have my coat on, I make extra efforts to be deferential and polite. Granted, I have had to worry less about this since 11 September, since now the people who are buying into these stereotypes have young Middle Eastern men to worry about.
The moral of the story, ladies and gentlemen, is that trenchcoat-wearing people -- or anyone else who fits a "dangerous" stereotype -- are no more homicidal than the general populace. There is no reason in the world to be afraid of us. We're not going to kill you, so get over the media-created Trenchcoat Mafia Psycho Killers After You image and just smile back instead of scurrying away.
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© Cynthia 2002.