What is necessary is the seeing and feeling that the relation of sameness and difference between ourselves and that other person is beautiful. People need to feel…that difference of race is like the difference to be found in music: two notes are different, but they are in behalf of the same melody; they complete each other; each needs the other to be expressed richly, to be fully itself.
Ellen Reiss
In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.
Harry A. Blackmun
I remember many years ago I read for the first time the expression “Remember that you are unique… just like everyone else” I instantly grasped the irony and truth of the expression. Years later, it seems like I am starting to understand the deeper meaning of that saying.
I guess that my understanding of racism is naïve, to say the least. I truly believed (and at my core still believe) that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” but now I also understand that such statement can be painful and even insulting to many, when the only thing they have experienced is injustice and inequality.
Therefore, if what we want is to start a dialogue, we must begin by acknowledging that not everybody has experienced that so much proclaimed equality.
The whole idea that in fact not everybody experiences life as treated equal is very sad to me. Isn’t it what all the spiritual masters have been saying all along? Why can’t we understand it?
Perhaps because it is very hard (most probably impossible) to see the world from the viewpoint of someone else. We assume that our map is the territory, and that our own experience is the norm, that everybody is experiencing the world pretty much the same way we do. But unfortunately that is not the case. Life is full of opportunities for some, while full of challenges for others, and event full of disappointments to some others. Again, this is not only about how you see life, but how have you experienced it in the past (psychologist know how important early experiences are in shaping our reality). I mean, imagine a young adult (of any color), who since s/he was a child has lived on the streets, begging for food and only experienced mistreatment from society. How could I expect/demand for him or her to understand that we are all equal, that each of us is the maker of our own destiny, and that the only limits are those that we impose to ourselves, when I have never experienced anything even close to what s/he has experienced? We live in completely different worlds, where different rules apply. I cannot go on and preach them about love and equality, or about opportunity or self-improvement. I first must try to see things from his/her own perspective, understand the world s/he is living, admire his/her endurance (who knows if I would be able to do it any better) and begin from there.
We are in fact all equal, all daughters/sons of God, all living expressions of the Divine, but that divine has chosen to manifest in different ways, learn different rules, have develop in a different culture and grow out from different backgrounds and experiences, suffer distinct tragedies and laugh for different reasons. Even if we all search for the same things (love, security, happiness, connection, meaning…) how we go by that search and what meaning we make out of it may be entirely different for each of us, not better or worse, just plain different, and that is certainly Ok; I just need to keep remembering.
But then again, what do I know…
