Making the people around me laugh is what warms my soul. I love getting a chuckle out of people, and being told that my funny story or little quirky phrases made a person's day is what sends me to my happy place. An error of my ways that I’ve recently discovered is that because of my silliness, some people have succumbed to identifying me as a “dumb blonde.”

To some, they see me as a glitter whore who sits around twirling my hair asking what the wet stuff is falling from the sky. But to those who really know me, they know how intelligent and creative I am because they took a moment to see beyond my hair color. Society, though, has given blondes a general label as being unintelligent. By placing this label on blondes, we have created a culture where it is difficult to be both blonde and silly without being labeled as a "dumb blonde." I know that my intelligence is just as bright to my hair color, and when labeled as a "dumb blonde" all I can think about is this: What happened to everyone being equal?

More often than you would think, those with color-challenged locks are labeled a "dumb blonde" just by one look. This person might never have uttered a word - let alone walk into a wall - thereby earning a mean label just because of their appearance. People see my light locks and fair skin, and that’s all. Had they actually had a conversation with me, they would have gotten to hear the big words I use, words that they probably had never heard before. They would get to hear how I graduated in the top of my class, and got accepted into both Big 10 colleges in my state.

This label maker would have gotten to hear about how I juggle two campus jobs, while taking 15 credit hours and making the Dean’s List. This person would have heard about how I give up my Friday mornings and volunteer at the local hospital and also volunteer for a respected researcher on campus as a lab assistant analyzing data and making graphs. This bystander would have gotten to learn all about me, my successes, my dreams and my fears. This person would know that I am so much more than the color of my hair, and that I should not be defined by my funny personality and hair color. But no, they use small words when speaking to me because they are quick to assume I am inferior to those with more melanin in their hair follicles.

Being blonde is almost like being diagnosed with the plague, unless of course you are one of those people that decided to ride the wave and use their blondness to their advantage - enter the Marilyn Monroes, Anna Nicole Smiths and Pamela Andersons of our world. Men assume that we are easy, and society sees us as uintelligent and only getting by in life with our looks. It’s as if our hair follicles interfere with our brain waves, and it blocks our thinking process. This blockage decreases our mental capacity, as some see, and automatically puts us at the bottom of the spectrum.

In a society where equality is so important, I am disgusted that while gender and race cannot be joked about, something like hair color is fair game. How did we, as a society, decide that it's evil to mock what color of skin or type of chromosomes someone was born with, but making fun of someone's intelligence - something that can't even be seen - is fair game for millions of jokes that people don't even whisper when they repeat them. Do they also think blondes are hard of hearing too? Or maybe they think blondes are so dumb they won't even realize someone is making fun of them. As a blonde, I know that blondes have more fun. As a person, I know that "dumb blonde" is an uneducated stereotype that people need to stop believing.