Sometimes, but not usually. I tend to dress in the fashion of punk/goth. When my daughter was born someone in my neighborhood turned me in to Child Protective Services because (and this is directly from the complaint) "... because of her appearance we believe that she is abusive and neglectful to the child and it should be removed from her custody for its own protection." I didn't know these people, had never talked to them. They didn't know I worked as an office manager at a university, they didn't know my daughter was deaf, they knew nothing about me except for the clothes I wore. Because they decided they knew everything about me based on my appearance, I endured 8 months of random weekly visits from a social worker. After the first two visits, she mostly stopped by for a break and a cup of tea. However, the social worker had to follow protocol, so I did too. These same people, when they noticed my daughter wasn't taken away, lodged two more complaints. Luckily, these were briefly investigated and then ignored. All based on what they could obviously tell from my appearance.

Example #2: In the weeks after Columbine, I and friends of mine would get harassed in stores, restaurants, had things thrown at us from cars, had delivery people make comments like "You're not gonna shoot me, right? " etc. We ended up establishing a charity group called the Milwaukee Goths (motto: Black Clothes, Warm Hearts) to get the citizenry to understand that just because we wore black clothing it didn't mean that we weren't also parents, home owners, medical personnel, lawyers, police officers, IT, etc. That we were just like them and had the same concerns they did, our fashion preference notwithstanding. Saying you can tell quite a bit about a person from the way they look is right up there with saying all black people are lazy, on welfare, and criminals, that all American Indians are drunks or stoic, that all Jews are money hungry, blondes are stupid, so on and so forth. People should be judged by their deeds and words, not by the clothes they wear. Sadly, outward appearance seems to be all people care about now.

No thats the incert on the flap. The cover is just the cover