It's easy for people to make assumptions about others -- pattern matching is a survival skill. When people have assumptions made about them, sometimes they become self-fulfilling prophecies.

The author of this essay, a black woman, learned from her family how to run pattern interrupts on people so she doesn't get stuck in the pattern.

  [...] I was miffed, as only an 
  only child could be, about 
  sharing my mother’s time with 
  the neighbor girl. I must have 
  said something about why we had 
  to do this. The Vivian, as I 
  called my mother, fixed me with 
  a stare as she was slipping on 
  her pearl earrings and told me 
  that people who can do must do.

"people who can do must do" - this is a constructive philosophy for getting through life, a local version of 'a rising tide lifts all boats'.

  I learned, watching my mother, that 
  there was a price we had to pay to 
  signal to gatekeepers that we were 
  worthy of engaging. It meant 
  dressing well and speaking well. It 
  might not work. It likely wouldn’t 
  work, but on the off chance that it 
  would, you had to try.

I'm dealing with gatekeepers at the moment, except the ones I'm trying to convince to do their job are rather inaccessible. Maybe I am learning the value of persistence.