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In my America defender mask, I would like to change 'our' to 'every'(which you might very well mean) because I think it is quite natural and prevalent(although highly tragic) to mistrust what appears different and to feel more comfortable with the familiar.
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Absolutely. Certainly America is not unique here. I only spoke specifically of it because America is at the center of my experience with this sort of thing.</p>
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This is why we waste so much time trying to persuade others to become like us, often through indefensible pressures. Overcoming racism is an achievement, just as culture is an achievement since it curbs our violent animal nature and permits, through agreement/threat of punishment, the strong of arm not necessarily to conquer.
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Yeah. But, you know, there are some amazingly subtle and yet very powerful biological and social forces interacting to cause racism, and I have experimented with them. I think, to tell the truth, racism is pretty much nothing more than a branch of ME-ism and that we see it cropping up with equal force even among people of the same race. Shiites and Sunnis at times hate each other every bit as much as whites and blacks. There are blacks in Africa who would die for the chance to kill other blacks. The Chechen rebels are literally killing others much like themselves in many ways. The same goes for white Protestants who have hated white Catholics with such force as to disown their own kids when the two groups have intermarried. Likewise with Serbs and Croats. Catholics have hated Catholics, and Protestants have hated Protestants. White Irish folk in Northern Ireland have for many years literally murdered each other. I saw a film some years ago with Emily Watson about a Catholic family in Ireland wherein a grandmother scorns her own grandkid because, as she claimed, he had Northern Irish Hair. I just dont think racism is essentially any different than this, though it does have some very powerful superficial differences. The great thing, I think, is that our cruel reactions to those differences can be overcome, much as we can overcome reactions to other differences. Here is how Ive tried and succeeded with it (though I do have difficulties extending this everywhere):</p>
<p>Have you ever met a person, maybe a girl in your youth who you initially perceived to be intolerably ugly, but who, after youve spoken with her to experience her delightful mannerisms and wonderfully quirky way of looking at the world became irresistibly attractive? Well, I have experienced this several times, each time wondering just what in the world was I thinking! How in the world did I ever see the person as unattractive? And why couldnt I afterward get back to that place where the person turned me off? I have experienced the same thing with guys, albeit (and to be VERY clear about it :)) not in a sexual way. Ive met guys with whom I felt little initial affinity, but who inexplicably felt an attachment to me. But when I have gone against my initial inclinations and willed myself to extend toward those guys, I have in almost every case wondered intensely what was my problem. Maybe it was their head shape or height, who knows? But something about their persons initially caused me to respond to them with reticence. And yet after I willed myself to closely analyze them, the very features that I had earlier rejected, took on a new and sometimes profoundly pleasant meaning to me.</p>
<p>I think we probably all have at least some of this capacity to add new physical features to our personal catalogs of preferences, so that as we encounter people who possess differences, we can become better able to exchange with them with fewer episodes of initial dissonance. I have noticed this capacity in myself now very many times. Ill see someone who is different, have a really yucky initial reaction that makes me completely shut down so that I dont really even want to say hello. But, Ill go against the reaction to see if I can get close enough to the guy to add his features to my catalog. Far more often than not, the guy will let me add his face just fine. Sometimes, depending on the circumstance, Ill be able to add his brother, his wife, his sister, his mom and dad, and friends. And it makes it a lot easier next time I encounter someone else like them. Eventually, after adding enough members like these folks to my catalog, I feel at home with them and can even pick out the folks of their type who I personally find attractive, distinguishing comfortably between them and those who just dont do it for me.</p>
<p>I think racism takes place when this capacity goes unused. In the same way pleasant experiences can perhaps make us more receptive to new physical features, negative experiences and negative portrayals can cause us to have visceral negative reactions to certain features. I think a lot of the reactions many of us have against one another may have less to do with race and much more than we think to do with how we are accidentally influencing one anothers perceptions of racial features as we struggle, react and operate within our society. For this reason, and contrary to my good friend Kono here, I think students do have some sort of obligation to other students to enrich their lives based on their particular ethnic background. Students often represent the best of us, since their whole thing is to be open-minded and learn new stuff. So, it makes plenty of sense to me to direct the best of our different types of people toward each other to allow them the chance to add differences to their own catalogs of preference, ultimately to help them avoid the kinds of foolish and destructive assumptions about people that come easily to the ignorant.</p>
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Groups treat alien groups as uncivilized, backward and in need of conversion. That we pass on the streets without clubbing each other is fairly impressive in my book and I will consider it extraordinary that we should one day want to go catfishin or have tea.
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hah! I shift between admiration for our society and deep cynicism toward it. I wonder if we dont club one another because of mutual respect for our shared humanity, or if maybe we dont do it because of mutually assured destruction. Jefferson seemed to think the latter was a perfectly fine basis for peace in civilized society. I have just never been that comfortable with the idea, though it sure does seem to have something to it.</p>
<p>I find it impressive that YOU might want to go catfishin. Whew. I have gone only a few times, and both times were real ordeals. Messy, messy, messy! Oh my goodness, the good ol boys I went with flat out required that if I was gonna go along, Id have to learn how to roll up my sleeves and clean those things right along with them. I did it, both times, and had a ball because I was pushing pretty hard to add this stuff to my catalog. But since I have issues with the South that, based upon a brief discussion here I think are probably unfair, its been awhile. One thing about these catalogs is you gotta keep pushing stuff into them else over time they get empty and you lose what you once had. But, having had the whole catfishin thing once in, I am pretty confident I can easily get it back. It was a ball, I tell ya especially eating them and stuff. But somehow, I think having my friends around to laugh at me and show me the ropes is what really made the time great. Well have to find some really good natured Southerners who know what they are doing and who wont mind a novice mangulatin a catfish or two.</p>
<p>Now tea I can do right fine.</p>