Let us celebrate our difference...
Published: 03:09 PM,Sep 11,2021 | EDITED : 10:09 AM,Sep 12,2021
As an equality and diversity trainer, and cultural awareness presenter racism is certainly a red flag topic, but I want to express the opinion that I have always been uncomfortable with dictionary and academic definitions of racism. Part of the problem, I feel, is the aggressive stance upon which racism is defined today, compared with when I was growing up.
I caught this one recently, “the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another,” and I’m personally comfortable with a definition that ascribes to the words of the first clause in the sentence, wondering if its author didn’t feel they had been sufficiently aggressive in their opening statement that different races possess different characteristics, abilities, or qualities, because they, and we, do!
I mean, I’m white... British, European, or Caucasian, depending upon which form I’m filling out, and I’m possibly even archetypical, a blonde baby, a brown-haired kid with freckles, and now a post-middle-aged, not quite over-the-hill, salt-n-pepper cum white-haired New Zealand born, United Kingdom citizen. Of course, I wanted to be 6’3” tall, dark-haired, sun-tanned like a Bondi lifeguard, but God, and life had other plans for me.
I had amazing parents... far from perfect, but prepared to let me make my own decisions, mistakes, and learn my own lessons, with the odd bit of ‘corporal’ that made me appreciate the teeth-gnashing life lessons one learns to roll with, though not without angst or pain. I had wonderful, doting grandparents on both sides, who were lost too soon, as they say... but I think the major lesson I learned growing up in a challenging, in its own way, environment, was that we are very much more than, or very much different to, what we appear, or appear to be.
Equality, diversity, and cultural awareness are all phrases that need to be considered together and separately, as should we be... we are all different! We look, walk, talk, and behave differently, as we have different climates, environments, cultures, traditions, and conditions to respond to, from conception to conclusion. I mean, we are certainly physically different, from tall and blonde Scandinavians, to the lithe Greek, Italian and Spanish clique of the Mediterranean. The English, Scots, Irish and Welsh of the British Isles would never, in a million years, agree to commonality, yet all have had the same punishing warlike, never-know-who-you-could-trust kingmakers and turf wars that have made them a pugnacious and challenging foe during the last hundred years.
The Middle East has a population that has learned to function in its environment with patience and pragmatism that defies expatriate assumption. The demands of diverse climactic conditions have forced the Russian psyche and behaviour into intransigence, while Central Asia and China are surely still reeling from the social events and influences of the Great Khans which colour their own peculiar defence mechanisms... and so it goes globally. So, these are some of the more established nations, the newer nations have little ‘baggage’ comparatively, and this is probably the reason why Australians and New Zealanders are seen as more laid back.
To be sure, there will be some jumping up and down with the crowning glory that “You’ve never been black... how would you know what it’s like to suffer?” Well, of course I’ve not been black, but is suffering all that is their lot? Surely there is a richness to all lives, through culture, traditions, heritage, and physique that is worth savouring? I tend towards simplicity, and would ask anyone of any culture if they would change places, parents, language, physique, knowledge, voice, ability to hold a tune, run fast, swim, think and act quicker, survive longer in inhospitable regions and situations, to eat and enjoy foods, and not be scared of heights. These are all personal attributes, not racial or racist qualities, but differences.
We should celebrate our differences... not be ashamed of, or try to hide from them, and most of all... never let others use your disaffection or dissatisfaction for their own selfish purposes.
I caught this one recently, “the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another,” and I’m personally comfortable with a definition that ascribes to the words of the first clause in the sentence, wondering if its author didn’t feel they had been sufficiently aggressive in their opening statement that different races possess different characteristics, abilities, or qualities, because they, and we, do!
I mean, I’m white... British, European, or Caucasian, depending upon which form I’m filling out, and I’m possibly even archetypical, a blonde baby, a brown-haired kid with freckles, and now a post-middle-aged, not quite over-the-hill, salt-n-pepper cum white-haired New Zealand born, United Kingdom citizen. Of course, I wanted to be 6’3” tall, dark-haired, sun-tanned like a Bondi lifeguard, but God, and life had other plans for me.
I had amazing parents... far from perfect, but prepared to let me make my own decisions, mistakes, and learn my own lessons, with the odd bit of ‘corporal’ that made me appreciate the teeth-gnashing life lessons one learns to roll with, though not without angst or pain. I had wonderful, doting grandparents on both sides, who were lost too soon, as they say... but I think the major lesson I learned growing up in a challenging, in its own way, environment, was that we are very much more than, or very much different to, what we appear, or appear to be.
Equality, diversity, and cultural awareness are all phrases that need to be considered together and separately, as should we be... we are all different! We look, walk, talk, and behave differently, as we have different climates, environments, cultures, traditions, and conditions to respond to, from conception to conclusion. I mean, we are certainly physically different, from tall and blonde Scandinavians, to the lithe Greek, Italian and Spanish clique of the Mediterranean. The English, Scots, Irish and Welsh of the British Isles would never, in a million years, agree to commonality, yet all have had the same punishing warlike, never-know-who-you-could-trust kingmakers and turf wars that have made them a pugnacious and challenging foe during the last hundred years.
The Middle East has a population that has learned to function in its environment with patience and pragmatism that defies expatriate assumption. The demands of diverse climactic conditions have forced the Russian psyche and behaviour into intransigence, while Central Asia and China are surely still reeling from the social events and influences of the Great Khans which colour their own peculiar defence mechanisms... and so it goes globally. So, these are some of the more established nations, the newer nations have little ‘baggage’ comparatively, and this is probably the reason why Australians and New Zealanders are seen as more laid back.
To be sure, there will be some jumping up and down with the crowning glory that “You’ve never been black... how would you know what it’s like to suffer?” Well, of course I’ve not been black, but is suffering all that is their lot? Surely there is a richness to all lives, through culture, traditions, heritage, and physique that is worth savouring? I tend towards simplicity, and would ask anyone of any culture if they would change places, parents, language, physique, knowledge, voice, ability to hold a tune, run fast, swim, think and act quicker, survive longer in inhospitable regions and situations, to eat and enjoy foods, and not be scared of heights. These are all personal attributes, not racial or racist qualities, but differences.
We should celebrate our differences... not be ashamed of, or try to hide from them, and most of all... never let others use your disaffection or dissatisfaction for their own selfish purposes.