Most of us have been victims of some kind of stereotyping. Mine is usually attached to the fact that I am a professor. Every once in awhile someone will accost me with words like, "Well, you wouldn't know about that! You live in an ivory tower." The plain fact is that the speaker doesn't even know me, but then that is what gives birth to stereotypes in the first place. I'm usually able to avoid an immediate defensive reaction. "What do you mean?" I ask. "Oh," he says, "you live behind safety glass. You don't walk the streets like I do. You have your head in the clouds. You're out of touch with real people." "If I did walk the streets," I ask, "what would I see? If I actually got in touch with people, what is it that I would feel?"

With this question the conversation either stops or accele…