So, Racial Stereotypes Are Unacceptable, But Age-Group Stereotypes Are A-OK?

A large number of the "RAAAAGE!!! GRR!" moments in my life come from teachers.  Sometimes they're big things, that I'll talk about later (such as my idiotic Christian Latin teacher who insults both vegetarians and Agnostics regularly, or the Health teacher that won't allow same-sex couples in the Marriage Simulation and insists that "Marriage is between a man and a woman"), and sometimes they're smaller, but still damn annoying, and make me go "Are you serious?!"

Here's one such moment from biology class.

One day last week, the teacher was reminding everyone how we aren't allowed to have mp3 players in the school. When she was finished, one student suggested "Why don't you play music for everyone to listen to?"

I thought this was a pretty decent suggestion. My favorite teacher in my elementary school almost always had music playing in the background, and it never "interrupted the learning environment", or whatever other bullshit principals say about music. I prepared myself for the teacher to make one of the many arguments I'd heard before.

Her response was "I don't like what you guys listen to."

I replied "Well, we all don't listen to the same thing..."

She: "Yes you do! I know what teenagers listen to."

While I was busy trying to think of a response that would get past her homogenizing mindset, another voice rang out. Keep in mind that my school is almost all black, and while mostly you never even notice it, there's this one person in biology who constantly announces that everyone is being racist towards him. (Even when they're not.) He said, "Oh, you think that 'cause we're black, we all listen to rap, right? Racist!"

Class: *Rolls eyes*

Teacher(Who, keep in mind, is also black): "What? No, that's a horrible stereotype. I just don't like teenagers' music."

Me: "What do you think 'we all' listen to? Pop, hip-hop?"

Her: "Yes, exactly. Don't try to lie to me, I know what teenagers listen to."

At this point I knew there was no hope in trying to get through to her. I kept thinking, if only she could look through my CD collection, would she be in for a surprise. I wasn't going to say anything else, but a friend spoke up.

Friend(Pointing to me): "Oh yeah? She listens to foreign musicals and stuff from Romania!"

Me(Smiling): "And amateur Polish industrial ambient songs!"

Teacher: ...

So yeah, it's a small annoyance, but the double standard is still there: That stereotyping someone by race is offensive, yet stereotyping the same person by age is perfectly alright.