A young man steps into an elevator located at the ground floor of a hospital. A middle-aged woman, seeing the stranger’s arms and neck littered with tattoos, holds her purse a bit closer to her chest and grips her daughter’s hand tighter. His friendly greeting goes unreciprocated in favor of averted eyes and noticeable discomfort. After being presented with a quick exit from the elevator, the mother begins warning her daughter of other men that look like one they just shared the elevator with. By advising her daughter to notice tattoos as signs of danger and unprofessionalism, the woman is only restarting an unhealthy stigma surrounding body art. While this outcome is not guaranteed for every situation, the negative sentiments surrounding tattoos,…show more content… Selma Schmid, author of several medical science journals, details the evolution of tattoos through reflecting on historical movements. From the very start, the most common rationale behind tattoos was to display intense worship and document detailed prophecies (Schmid 444). However, the voluntary tattoos are not remembered nearly as much as the tattoos that served the purpose of branding for physical punishment and identification. Branding is a term used to describe the forced marking of humans by his or her appointed authorities. Slaves and convicted criminals alike were typically pinched with irons at high temperatures in order to prepare the area for needle stitches and coal dust (Schmid 445). The aim of this branding was to alert the public of criminals, thus creating a system of isolation for anyone so unfortunate to be permanently labeled for prior offenses, significant or…show more content… An important principle of body art came to the surface through tribes like the Iroquois, Mohawks, and Cherokees in the 1760’s. The Europeans appearing in the Americas were renegades and convicted criminals that were shipped and abandoned in the South Pacific. After being left to their own devices, these white men were forced to acclimate to a new culture and decide where to settle. Once newcomes decided to stay in one place, they received tattoos from the locals as a sort of inauguration that displayed a conversion of religion and new, better way of life (Schmid 446). Moving into more recent tattoo history, Schmid addresses the barrier between inked skin and obtaining job positions. Despite having the highest percentage of tattooed individuals in history, employers find the tattoos common of today’s society, whether it be a skull with flames or a footprint of one’s newborn child, to be unprofessional and even an indicator of lower status (Schmid 447). Schmid’s historical approach to tattoos offers the knowledge and background necessary for others to analyze to both justify and question the negative connotations revolving around tattoos
