This chapter is about Race, Ethnicity and Class. This is a difficult subject to treat.
I don't understand why people are so afraid to be different from others. In my way of thinking, we gain strength from the differences. Like the Vulcans in Star Trek, I believe in IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination). No, I don't have pointy ears.
Our ethnicities have developed as a result of the various environments in which our ancestors have lived, and the various challenges which they have faced and overcome. There is much to be learned, and much to be savored. Imagination may be fired, ideas develop, and everyone may be enriched by the associations.
Differences in race are good. How boring it would be if we all looked the same. We value diversity in our pets, our homes, in our clothing, in the scenery -- in all other things, we value diversity, why not in ourselves? We're really only one race - one species - human. But we come in varieties, each of which has an aesthetic value of its own. We all have the same ultimate potential in that which is the most important -- development of character.
I like the African American Women's attitude of "make the most of what you have." We are all handed lemons in life, so what else can we do but make lemonade.?
The one thing that we have talked about, which I do not like, is class. I believe that class is a bad thing, because it is not inherent in our physical makeup, like race, neither is it a positive way of dealing with the world around us, like ethnicity, but it is a differentiation imposed upon men for the purpose of giving power over others to a small group of people. If an artificial distinction must be imposed upon humans, let it be a constructive distinction based on personality and disposition, for the purpose of improving people's lives by getting them into a career in which they can excel and be happy.
That brings me right back to IDIC - Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination. The principle that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, and all may be benefitted.
Huh... next I'll be saying "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." Do you believe that? If so, maybe YOUR ears have points on them.
