Le Livesay Haiti Weblog

Perspective

This “experiment” is a perfect illustration of how we all deal with preconceived notions about the people we encounter, and how that affects the way we view them and even the way we treat them.

Yesterday I had experienced a pretty rough day by the time I landed in Miami, FL at 8:30 in the morning.

I stood in line to get on my flight home and the pilot was joking around with folks as we boarded the plane. I asked him about his Kreyol and French speaking skills and we chatted briefly.

He told me in that interaction that he really found the Haitian people to be wonderful. I stood there thinking about what he had shared and turned back to him to thank him for that kind word. I told him that my experience is that the folks on flights often seem very annoyed (even mean) and that I really appreciated that the cultural differences weren't causing him to be ungenerous in his assumptions about Haitian people.

He said, "We're all just people, right?"

I like this video I embedded above and I loved my interaction with the pilot named Jason on AA yesterday.

Perspective is everything.