I find it amazing that AMC and TCM will show old Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland where the cast wears black-face, yet Cartoon Network won't show Speedy Gonzales cartoons because they are degrading to Hispanics. I'm also amazed that there has never been an uproar over Aunt Jemimah and Uncle Ben, though I don't know the history behind these companies. For all I know the company or companies that produce these products are fully owned and operated by African-Americans.

I have been thinking about another stereotype that has been getting more and more play in recent years, and the people who fit the general image are playing it to the hilt. This stereotype is that of the nerd, the dork, the geek--though I refuse to let anyone call him/herself a geek after learning that a geek in carnival days was the person who bit the heads off of chickens. I learned this through having to read a book called "Geek Love." If you want to read something that is really off the wall try reading that book.

But back to the point. We have been trying for decades to rid the world of stereotypes based on gender, race and culture, but stereotypes based on what a person does in life or their intellectual interests are free game, and that is something I just don't understand. Why is it not okay to "joke" about anything to do with a person's appearance, but it is okay to make fun of other things that can't be controlled, like a person's intellect.

I know I would be considered a nerd, in fact I have actually been called a nerd before, but that ignores the fact that I am also an athlete and a photographer and a klutz. I am many things, I can't be relegated to just one.

I don't know if I just didn't see the discrimination happening around me in high school or if it really wasn't there, but I never had to see the things we have talked about in class in an up-close, personal way. The only discrimination that I ever saw was not based on the social standing of the parents of the students I was in class with. Mostly, the students who got away with the most were the ones whose family had lived in town for several generations, or who had a parent on the school board. One of the two times in my life that I can think of that I was discriminated against had to do with a parent being a school board member.

But even now, at the end of my fourth year out of high school, I've not seen racial discrimination. None of my roommates have ever talked about it and I have never had the nerve to ask, and I know that it's out there, this is no way trying to say that it isn't, it is just saying that I've never had to deal with it personally.

And this is where I'm going to insert a comment that I've had in my head for awhile. I don't think it's an offensive phrase, but if someone thinks it is, just let me know and it can come down. I don't have a problem with people who are pro-African-American--in fact, I support them. What I have a problem with is people who are anti-white. And believe me there is a difference between being pro-African-American and being anti-white. It is very similar to the difference between listening and hearing.

People always talk about how black and white can not overcome their differences and "live together in peace and harmony," but I can honestly say that that is a statement that I find hard to believe. If those people could just learn to live peacefully with those they share space with, they might learn that it takes time to work through differences, but those differences don't have to be discussed at the highest level, they should be first be discussed at the local level. Before a person in Abilene uses gangs in Los Angeles as an example and says that all African Americans are bad, that person should talk to at least one African-American that lives in Abilene to see if their opinion has any merit in the place they are actually living.

I don't fit

The first time I can remember someone trying to put me into one of those easy-to-sort cookie-cutter boxes was kindergarten. When the teacher discovered I had been able to read since before I began my first class, they decided to put me into the "smart kid" group. Yes, I could read; and yes, I loved to read; and yes, I was reading at a grade level beyond what I should have been reading at age 5, but all of that doesn't mean that I should have been put into that mold before I had a chance to learn anything about myself.

I was sent to take the G/T test that summer and apparently passed with flying colors because that was the group that I was put in whenever we had study groups. But even though I liked the trips we took in elementary school with the program, I didn't like the program itself. The people who designed the G/T program, at the time at least, believed that if you were "smart" then you must be creative and have a wonderful imagination and be able to do all kinds of things with your hands. But as I have said, I am not the stereotype. I am not a creative person. I can take photographs that you would not believe, I just have the eye for a certain type of shots, but I cannot create. That's just not me.

This is why I know that people, especially children, should not be labeled as one certain thing; or if you must label a child, label them into as many groups as possible, don't put them into one thing that they cannot get out of.

As I sit here and think about all of the girls and women that I know, I can only think of one that might fit into any of the stereotypes of women that I can think of. She is a beauty pageant winner who is a twirler, but that is as far as the stereotype fits. She wasn't the dumb blonde in high school who got by on her looks and she didn't only compete in beauty pageants. We competed in academic UIL together, she was into golf and tennis, she has graduated from college.

So while I can see how she might be put into the role of the beauty queen contestant, the people who put her in that role need to realize that she is so much more.

I will fully admit that I love cheesy movies from the '80s and early '90s and my favorite has to be "Strictly Ballroom." This is one of the first movies directed by Baz Luhrmann, the director of "Moulin Rouge," and I actually couldn't sit through "Moulin Rouge."

The reason I bring up this movie is that Luhrmann, even when showing the Latinos in the movie as living basically in the slums of New Zealand, is still able to show some respect for the culture of the characters he is representing.

And even though this is one of my favorite movies of all time, I still have problems with the portrayl of women in it. The female lead, Fran, begins the movie as, let's face it, an ugly girl with frizzy hair, huge glasses and acne. As the movie progresses she loses the glasses, her skin clears up and her hair smooths out. As all of these things happen the main male lead, Scott, falls in love with Fran.

I've always seen this as Luhrmann showing that the woman must be physically perfect for the man to fall in love with her. I know some people would say that it's Scott's love that makes Fran become beautiful, but I've never been able to see it that way.

I recently met up with my parents at my grandmother's house and my dad gave me some interesting news. McMurry University recently lost one appeal that they filed with the NCAA and still have one more chance to appeal a decision made by an NCAA committee. The decision being appealed is one that will make McMurry change the mascot that has been a part of its history since the very beginning. It has always been the McMurry Indians, yet the NCAA is trying to change that. The Florida Seminoles have appealed the decision and had it granted, yet McMurry has not.

Now, I don't know any of the specifics of the court case; I only know what the ARN stated in their article, which was that McMurry's portrayal of Native Americans had been found offensive. Actually, it said that the fans at the games had been using imagery that was degrading to Native Americans and the decision might have nothing to do with what the university itself had done.

Now, I come from a high school that uses Indians as its mascot and I can fully understand why the people attending the university are fighting the decision, what do they want the mascot to change to. This mascot is part of the school's history.

Is the NCAA going to make Notre Dame change its mascot from the Fighting Irish because it's perpetuating the stereotype that Irish people are all brawlers? No, the Fighting Irish is such an integral part of the school that there is no way that it will ever be changed.

The same goes for the Aggies at A&M. The Aggie always bears the brunt of the joke and is shown as a dullard, yet the fact that the name is for agriculturists is never brought up in all of the NCAA's dicussions of degrading stereotypes.