As I have mentioned in class one of the times that I fell victim to my perceptual process was when I met my good friend Herman. When I met Herman they had just hired him at the movie theater that I worked for. Here is when my process started. Step one Sensation. I met this man who had long unkempt hair, long finger nails, dry skin, and I learned he was from Chicago. In the organization step I put these things together along with the fact that he was black and came to the interpretation that this must mean he is just a punk. Some low life from dirty Chicago. I wanted nothing to do with him. He was not a person I want to be seen with. 

at a first glance

my friends

I am filled with extreme guilt for judging Herman this way because I couldn't have been more wrong. Yes he is black and yes he is from Chicago, but I did not see that, he is a funny, talented young man trying to make a life for himself by going to college. He is helping raise his nephew and he had created a better environment at work... something I wanted to be apart of. Today Herman is one of my very best friends. While I do tease him occasionally with the big racial stereotypes. Like for example offering him grape Kool-Aid, or inviting him over for fried chicken, or teasing him because his apartment complex is called "the fields".  We both understand that it is all in good fun and that I would never really be so mean. 

Cause Herman is my Cracker

More recently, (while writing this) I fell victim to somebody else's perceptual process. I was on the phone talking to one of my girlfriends about some people she had just seen that we had gone to high school with. We were comparing ourselves  and where we are in our lives to these other people and where they are in their lives. (Something I find my self doing way to often.) When my girlfriend said "Well I live in a trailer so I am not doing much better." I was trying to make her feel better by telling her that the trailer doesn't define her. She has been saving up her money and doing a splendid job. She just lost a ton of weight and is looking "hella good". Plus Her and her husband are both employed and going to college. Nothing to be ashamed about.

Well all the time I am giving my friend this pep talk my husband sitting next to me playing Destiny on the PS4. He had joined a party chat and one of the men also in the chat could hear my side of the conversation.  Or at least bits and pieces. So in his perceptual process he had heard me talking. Of course I do not know what all he heard but I do know he only heard my half of the conversation. I feel that he may have taken it out of context because his evaluation of me was that I was a bitch. This person did not know me and he could not have known I was trying to make my friend feel better and his opinion of me was made up from just a few words I had said in half of a conversation.