File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0111, message 286


From: "Margaret Trawick" <trawick-AT-clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: of racism and multiculturalism (part 2)
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 21:55:01 +1300


The colonial powers formalized the division of people into discrete
categories, but they did not invent the categorization of peoples, and they
did not invent the languages of difference.  Difference is real for every
human being on this planet.  The ways the lines are drawn help some in some
ways, and hurt some in some ways.  Lines are constantly being created,
erased, and redrawn.  Difference - diversity - is in itself good and
necessary.  Imprisonment of a person in a category is neither.  Every human
being is both unique and connected to others in multiple and complex ways.

People are indeed studied as what they are: people.  Universals are
constantly sought.  But it is a terrible mistake to assume that every human
being is basically just like every human being.  If you enter a relationship
assuming that your partner is just like you in some particular way or
another, you are bound to be disappointed, and to feel betrayed.
Commonalities are to be discovered, between each human being and each other
human being.  The connection I find between you and me will not necessarily
be the same as the connection I find between me and somebody else.  The
discovery of difference is good and the discovery of commonality is good.
But to discover, you have to go out there and look.  You are taught, so that
you can travel beyond what you have been taught.  You are shown the
boundaries so that you can challenge them.  You are shown the wheel so that
you will not have to waste your time re-inventing it.



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