Pedro's Experiment

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    My initial thoughts about Pedro's dressing up and then down experiment, was that I was not surprised by the results. I do not think this experiment is strictly about his race. People who dress well, do get treated better regardless about their race. I have noticed that when I dress in all black in skinny jeans and a band shirt with my long hair, people do act differently around me. Workers at stores look at me thinking I am some ordinary kid that is in there to goof off and break items. I specifically remember this one example when I was with two of my friends, all of us were wearing black skinny jeans, band shirt, and with long hair, we were in SEARS at the Louis Joliet Mall looking at beds. At the time, I was actually looking to buy a new bed, so I was sitting on beds as I was walking by, just testing them like everyone does. Then, one of the managers saw me sitting on all the beds and assumed we were goofing off and kicked us out of SEARS for the day. I was shocked when this happened because we were not goofing off any more than an adult would be goofing off, just having fun. I believe since the group of us looked as though we were young teenagers that looked like we were looking for trouble, actually got us into trouble. 

    Now when I dress, I usually wear a pair of blue jeans, a non-offensive band shirt (because I have been told by an elderly lady that one of my band shirts I was wearing was offensive, but that is a story for another day) and a nice jacket because I have noticed that people in stores are more polite to me when I dress like this. I still get some people that think I am a young stoner kid (mainly because I have long hair and I joke around a lot), but they usually realize I clearly do not do drugs once they find out that I am a criminal justice major that has aspirations to land a job in the FBI.  

    Therefore, I think this experiment can be recreated by using any person around the same age and of any race and still have the same outcome. I thought this experiment did a great job in publicizing how people treat others based on how they dress and how easily these same people come to judge others in how they dress.