Wednesday, May 28, 2014

A Rant and Rave

It has been such a long time since I've had a rant and rave, but here is one.

Here is a book I saw at a tourist store in the Monument Valley area (so in the Navajo reservation).

"Native Wisdom for White Minds" ..... and no it is not a joke.

I am actually nearly going to stay off the issue of the "Native" term.
I am just going to say we are all native of somewhere and even in the way they mean it (where you are only a native if you live on the same continent than you ancestors did a long time ago, though how long ago is unclear) "whites" are Natives of Europe so white European wisdom should be included.... but we all know that in the way the term Native is used here "whites" are not native of anywhere.
However I do realize that right now terminology is difficult. And in fact on this trip I was really surprised to see that in the States the term "indian" appears to be OK. I tell you in Canada it is not.

What I really want to address is the "White Minds" thing. I promise you there is no such thing as "White Minds" and this is what I really want to pick on...and I can because I am what they call "white".
Here is the scoop: whites, blacks, browns, yellows etc (In case I forget anybody) are diverse groups which all contain numerous cultures and even more types of minds.
I know black people with minds, culture and way of thinking much more similar to mine than most white people I met during this trip in the States....and that is just an example.

Imagine if somebody published a book called "White Wisdom for Black Minds" they would get lynched!

Can we try to at lease ease off on the racism? At all ? Any chance? Can we try? Not just us "white people" but everybody? Can we even be allowed to say out loud (or in this case write) that there is racism against "whites"?
In South Africa, in the funniest of way, racism against "whites" is called "reverse racism" and the term would work if "racism" was what "whites" do to other races, but racism is what people do when they discriminate based on race, any race.
In fact saying "Asians are excellent at math", even though it comes across as a positive comment, is racism. It is not about which race does it, not about to what race it is done, and not about the nature of the comment, it is about discrimination based on race.

I'm just going to add: We all bleed red.

No comments: