pressure to cover

“Covering” is a concept I had never heard of until Yoshino’s “Pressure to Cover.” The idea of discriminating is not new but the discrimination toward one’s traits associating one with a particular minority is something worth pondering. I agree that the concept of “covering” is prevalent in our country. Penalizing a person for their subtle traits associating said person with a certain group, especially if they are mutable, is discrimination. Yoshino’s “Pressure to Cover” directly ties in with the concept of America’s “melting pot”. The need for assimilation is human nature. We all want to fit in somewhere whether it is a group of friends, or one friend. The idea to have everyone accepting of anyone sounds almost impossible to accomplish. It would be defying a need everyone seems to have. One point in this article is everyone has a characteristic that must be muted in order to look professional. I think the pressure to cover is heaviest on minorities but not exclusive to those groups. Everyone must cover in some way. This is Yoshino’s point in “the mainstream is a myth”. “It is not normal to be completely normal” jumped out at me. Is not everyone different in some loud, obvious way? And who defines normal? I would love to answer with white males but they have their own problems of obesity, alcoholism, and whatever else plagues white males in particular. The need for assimilation or to “fit in” will never be overcome.