Stereotypes

"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made of the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed."
-Herman Melville

Burlingame California has a stereotype that most of us are already well aware of; upper class, white, well educated, and safe.
I'm not going to criticize this stereotype, because in this case I am one. I am a white, well educated, upper class women, or basically a typical Burlingame teenager. I don't know much about the world outside my little "Burlingame bubble." My brothers are star baseball athletes, while my dad coaches their team, my mother is a successful lawyer, we go to church every Sunday, and as a kid we went to Tahoe or resorts in the Caribbean, I guess you would label us the "typical" American family. I will fully admit that I know absolutely nothing about the world, and have been mostly sheltered my entire life.
Richmond California was voted the "9th most dangerous city" in 2009. While if you were to google Richmond, the opposite stereotype of Burlingame would appear. Gang violence, Latino, under educated, and of course dangerous.
The thing is, my boyfriend lives there. Unlike me, he happens to break the "stereotype." My boyfriend is French and British, not part of any gang, graduated a year early, and is the most chivalrous boy I have ever had the pleasure to meet. But the part of the stereotype he does meet is that he lives in a very dangerous area.
When I go and hangout with him, I'm not allowed to walk to my car alone and he won't usually let me drop him off at night. The fact that my boyfriend went to the school made famous for the "Richmond High" rape, or has seen a real drive-by is mind baffling. I don't understand all the things he's seen and all the things he's constantly trying to protect me of.
I get a certain look when I tell kids from Burlingame that my boyfriend is from Richmond. It's a mixture of shock, curiosity, and alarm. The fact that someone from Burlingame is dating someone from the "ghetto." I do my best to believe that in this day and age, people aren't going to judge a couple due to where they live. But the looks on certain people's faces tend to tell me differently. Never mind the fact that my family adores him, or that he's fluent in two other languages, or that he's a Buddhist. The culture shock of two such different places, is too much for many people in our area to grasp.
How does this not bother me? Last Sunday, while sitting in front of his house a lot of cars drove by blasting music, almost all were rap or intense hip-hop music. We had been sitting out in front for sometime, when a car drove by blasting something completely different. At the same time my boyfriend and I looked at each other and said "Is that the Smiths?!" It's times like that, that make me realize stereotypes were made to be broken, and there is a reason he's my boyfriend, despite of where he lives.