Hi Paul,
No quibble with what you say, so long as we agree that even though we
are in that "privileged" White Male group, we have the capacity to
relate to other peoples situations.
However, that does not mean we really "Feel" what it is like.
After 40 years of working, living together, and being married for 34
of them, I can say with assurance that while I understand what my wife
explains to me, and I believe I can see how it impacts her life and
how she thinks and is forced to conduct herself, as a woman, I have
not one shred of how it feels to be living in a woman's body.
Because I have great respect for my wife, and trust her instincts, I
accept her feelings as real, even if I do not experience them, I can
relate them to feelings I have of a similar nature.
I would never dream of saying, "I know exactly how you feel". Even
if it were another blind person. I have no way of getting into their
head and feeling that which is unique to all that has made them the
person they are. As similar as some of us seem to be, and as much as
we believe we have in common, each of us are very different, and our
individual feelings are strictly our own.
We might say, "He's a Jew. I know just how they feel". Wrong! Jews
are as individual as are Blacks, or Pygmies.
Anyway, I'm running off at the fingers again, so I'll leave it for
another day.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/20/16, Paul Wick <wickps@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
Not saying you and I cannot empathize, but in the end we both benefit from
white privilege. Even if said privilege is diluted at times by disability
it's still there.
Paul
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 20, 2016, at 8:09 AM, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Certainly I am not able to have the full sense of the impact of
grinding poverty, disenfranchisement, forced to live on land that is
not wanted...at the moment, by my oppressors, forced to follow the
practices and the language of those who drove my People into the
unwanted corners, and continue to treat me and my People as non human.
But I do know what it is like to be a Working Class child, born with
cataracts, raised in a shack of a house that is surrounded by the fine
homes of the affluent junior executive families, attending a rich
children's school while dressed in last years Second Hand clothes. I
know what it is like to have teachers look down their noses with
disapproval when I enter their classrooms, while they are busy kissing
up to the well dressed, freshly scrubbed little cherubs of the
wealthy. I know what it is like to want to, "just be accepted". To
be able to play the games of the other children, when my eyes won't
allow me to see the ball or to swing the bat in an effort to make
contact, contact that seldom comes, and being told to sit on the
sidelines, knowing that no one wants me on their team.
I know what it's like to see the curl of the lip when trying to be
friendly to the girls in my class, the same girls who just gushed over
another one of my classmates.
I know what it's like to live in a, "never never land", between the
world of the Sighted and the world of the Blind, never quite being
accepted by either one.
I also know what good fortune was mine to have been born a White
Child. As a member of the Majority, even as one living at the lower
end, I had privileges not granted to so many others. And within this
precarious privilege granted to even a misfit, I was allowed enough
room to make my way into a better life. A life that will never be
open for many other disenfranchised children to enter.
So my question is this: what more do I need to experience in order to
understand the plight of those who are being pushed into the muck, and
forced to exist as subhumans?
Perhaps I am missing some bits and pieces, but in my mind I can
relate. I can become angry over what our Ruling Class does to
dehumanize those whom they have conquered.
Tell me what I'm missing?
Carl Jarvis
On 4/20/16, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
People who suffer oppression of any sort can and do identify with others
who
suffer oppression.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Wick" <wickps@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2016 8:57 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Why a Conservative Legal Organization Is
Desperately Trying to Kill the Indian Child Welfare Act
Right, which is why I realize that my identification with other
oppressed
people can only go so far because in the end I am not them.
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 19, 2016, at 12:01 PM, Martian.Lady <martian.lady@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
HI
Since we are dealing with the preservation of an entire race of people,
perhaps in this case, the survival of a tribe may depend on how the
child
is brought up. None of us would be able to comprehend what it would be
like to be an American Indian.
