Little boxes with little labels on them. Stereotyping is an effective
method of putting one more barrier between us and them.
When I worked at the Department of Services for the Blind, directing
the Orientation and Training Center, I adopted a policy of not looking
at the file on a prospective student until I had first met them and
had a long discussion with them. Seeing a new student in person and
then reading the stuff put in their file by the various counselors,
made a great difference. It gave me a clean slate on which to paint
my impressions. Then I looked at the file and saw the client through
the eyes of others, rather than having their views become my first
impression. It is easy to become impressed by the observations of
others.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/1/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
After a week of mostly listening to podcasts, I'm back to Eleanor
Roosevelt.
We're at the end of 1940, and the beginning of 1941. This country has
certainly been consistent in its resistance to helping refugees from war
torn countries and its suspicion of all immigrants. Not only didn't our
government care about the working people who were in danger of Nazi
cruelty,
it didn't care about notable, well known, talented people with special
connections. I want to point out to our two Muslim list members who are so
angry at Israel and who, like so many other people, confuse Jewish
individuals with the State of Israel, that the US government did to Jews
who
wished to immigrate here during the Nazi era, precisely what it is doing to
would-be Muslim immigrants today. I just read last night about a
Palestinian
who wanted to visit, just to compete in the Chicago Marathon, and was
refused admittance to the US. Our citizenry and our media are so ignorant
of
American history and culture, that they think that the White Nationalism
which Mr. Trump has allowed to express itself openly, is something unusual,
something at the edges of our society. But it's been part and parcel of our
country's laws and immigration policy from its inception.
I'm reading a novel called, "Behold The Dreamers", which someone on the DB
Review list recommended. It's a heartbreaking story about a couple, African
immigrants in New York City in 2007 to 2009. If you want to get a real
understanding of why people risk everything to come to this country and to
try to live here without legal status, if you want to know what it really
feels like for people who are poor and not white, who believe in the
American Dream that is peddled all over the world, and if you're willing to
experience vicariously, what they need to go through in their efforts to
make a better life for their children, read this book. The author is
fantastic. There are no stereotypes in this book. All the characters a
real,
flaws human beings. I only wish that people who have distorted ideas about
immigration, would be open to reading it and to understanding what it is
trying to tell them.
Miriam
