Comments on: Two Spirits

By: lavenderbay

lavenderbay — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:21:26 +0000

I’m glad you liked it, Urban Thought.

By: Urban Thought

Urban Thought — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:09:17 +0000

Thank you for stopping by. I appreciate the comment as well as your post.

By: lavenderbay

lavenderbay — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:24:22 +0000

Thanks for the link to the “Crabs in a Barrel” Jamaican fable, Haireality. I wonder if that was the mentality that lay behind the phenomenon of the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland?

By: haireality

haireality — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:28:10 +0000

The black community is rife with oxymorons. Within families, it is the “crabs in a barrel ” syndrome.

http://absurdtosublime.blogspot.com/2008/03/crabs-in-barrel.html

By: lavenderbay

lavenderbay — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:57:48 +0000

Thank you all for your responses.
You’ve touched on another assumed oxymoron, Themarvelousinnature, that of liberal countryfolk. The Saskatoon Anglican Synod has just narrowly voted against a motion to allow church blessings of same-sex civil marriages. Just as many rural parishes voted for the motion as against it.
A package of virtual super-crunchy Rollover biscuits is goin’ out to Checkers in Ohio!
I think, Livingisdetail, that Gollum (and Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis did a terrific, creepy portrayal of this!) typifies your thought: “Sure you found the gold, but since it’s my birthday, it really belongs to me!” Any excuse will do to prove that you deserve someone else’s stuff.
Your ironic comment, Eyegillian, about white not being a colour, reminds me of an Anglo-Saxon-descent professor’s tale of driving through US customs some decades ago. He was taken aback when the official asked him his colour but, quick on his skates, my professor replied, “I’m sort of pinky-grey, I guess.”

By: eyegillian

eyegillian — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 02:06:10 +0000

Your post shows how, despite society having become superficially more civilized, the nastiness has really just gone underground, not disappeared. I agree with themarvelousinnature: people are still as prejudiced as ever. And I admit that I’m prejudiced, too, although it’s hard for me to recognize all the zillions of tiny invisible ways I benefit as a middle class white person in a society where I am part of what is defined as “normal” (white isn’t a colour, eh?). I expect respect and good treatment from other people; that’s what I find “normal”, but other people aren’t so lucky, yet I’m blind to it. We have a long way to go…

By: livingisdetail

livingisdetail — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:00:05 +0000

Again an amazing post. You know, I’d really like to live in a world where people were not so interested in putting everyone into ‘boxes’. I don’t know but it seems to me that it is all about exclusion, this is mine not yours, and I haven’t worked out why this desire for exclusion appeals so much to some people.

I love Checkers response. People everywhere should take their example from the wonderful acceptance of dogs.

By: Checkers

Checkers — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:55:43 +0000

I did not know I was wise. I just call ‘em as I see them!

Dogs keep it simple. If a person is nice, that’s all that matters. And of course slip us a treat now and then…

By: themarvelousinnature

themarvelousinnature — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:52:44 +0000

I think it’s a shame that, in what’s supposed to be a progressive, advanced, and enlightened world, there is still such incredible prejudice and stereotyping among people. I understand that there is a little bit of animal nature there, instinct buried under years and years of culture and civilization (a little like rape is, at its basest, the animal instinct to spread one’s genes by opportunistic means), but, like rape, we’re supposed to be an advanced species; if we deign to classify ourselves as above animals, why do we still act like them?

I grew up in an extremely white community. I can recall less than half a dozen visible minority families in our small town, but in our little high school of 500, these six or seven kids were well-liked, well-accepted, and generally had many friends. Perhaps it was this context of exposure, perhaps it was just my limited experience, but for a long time I believed that other races, blacks especially, were still crying wolf after the wolf had left the building. And yet, the more I hear and learn, the more I realize that people are just as prejudiced as ever, that these other racial groups still do have valid claims, and that for all our proclamations of equality, we still don’t really act as an equal society. We celebrate Black History Month, or womens’ rights - acts of equality that we like to look at and say, “gosh, good thing we’re not like that anymore.” And yet we have huge contention over same-sex marriage. We’re not all that changed, after all.