Are Tattoos demeaning?

We are often conscious of our first impressions because it’s when we are judged how we are. We take only a little time to know somebody because we master in judging them by their first impressions. In our society, if we are seen wearing a cocky hairstyle, we are labelled as somebody not responsible or somebody who wouldn’t understand traditions. I reckon most people know that it’s not wise to judge people and we even don’t like to be judged. But these kinds of facts are difficult to change. More than HIVs and bird flues we are diseased with “Stereotypes” and what’s more, we are hardly able to direct ourselves to the right concepts. I cannot anymore explain this in general. So let me just get down straight to my point.

Tattoo. Anybody with tattoo on his/her body is looked at as a drug user and if allowed in a school, considered as the rule breakers. Now, how in the world does it make sense! A person with tattoo is rejected in many institutions just because of the belief that people with tattoos can do no good. When some people protested against this decision during an admission in an institute, they were told that it is always a student with tattoo who goes against the school rules. They said they are avoiding future chaos in the discipline of the institute. I respect their thoughts in disciplining the school but does it make sense? Should they label all the students with tattoo as rule breakers and all without tattoo as good students? To which level can we be sure that people make tattoos because they are not good enough for anything? Where is the evidence that tattoos are only what drug users do? When this issue came up, I heard many people talking and more than half of them were against tattoo. Now, how is a small ink-print on our body harmful? They take the whole idea of tattoo as something against our culture. This may be true to a certain extent but why dishonour EVERYONE with tattoo! Shouldn’t we know more?

I may not have the right to say these and it might offend people who oppose tattoo. But as far as I know, we shouldn’t just generalise everyone with tattoo as bad people. We generalise a lot of things, put them into categories and tag them just because everyone thinks so. But we are humans, so many DIFFERENT humans. May be we do not fall into any category that people know. May be we roam in around the town but we are not jobless. And as per what I have seen, some people make tattoos unaware of people’s judgements. Innocently, they decide to make some famous print on their body because they want to be fashionable. Young people, our interests and our methods may be some mistakes but should our opportunities be cut off? I may be wrong in considering the ones who weren’t given admission in institutes because of their tattoos as good people but we cannot just generalise everything so blindly.

I know a man who has more than seven different tattoos and each was made in the memory of the places he visited. A tattoo of a scorpion was for visiting Egypt and a Yin-Yang when he visited China. And as a matter of fact, he knows a lot of things, he has much knowledge to share and teach. He volunteers around places to help people and the most important thing, he doesn’t do drugs. So coming back to what I was saying, maybe we should learn more about people. Rather than fixing ourselves to the idea of denigrating people with tattoos, shouldn’t we also try to know the reasons behind their tattoos? And may be also learn to be smart with stereotypes.