From: "Annapurna Mamidipudi" <mannapurna-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: re: activist and rights to privilege
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 08:25:45 PDT


i liked what mary wrote...
in the villages where i work it is the very illusion of being privileged 
that gives people like me and others the authority to participate in 
finding solutions to problems that after all we have only second hand 
experience of...
the women spinner in her hut in a remote village is willing to see that 
i am a women like her in my problems with my mother in law or in my 
dependance on my husband to 'control' my daughter...while also seeing me 
as a town hotshot engineer who actually is impressed by the work she[the 
spinner] does and considers it important enough to try and work out any 
problems she may have....
the issue of being privileged while working with the underprivileged IS 
a problem...but somehow a sensible awareness of it goes a much longer 
way than guilty denials....
and then of course there are the saints like gandhi and budha who turn 
up once in a while to make frauds of us all..... :-)

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