minority segregation
Yes, a combination of two relatively intelligent-sounding words! Can you believe it?
I heard a scrap of gossip today at work that got me into about 2-minutes of thinking (yes, I sacrificed 2 glorious minutes of zen-like blank-mindedness for thought, and I survived).
The problem with minorities is that they tend to stick together. Now, that has its good side and its bad side, but when someone's isolated inside their own familiar microcosm they lose the ability to function in a public environment.
Now, I overreacted to what I heard, and I'm blowing it out of proportion I'm sure, but here it is:
An old coworker married and moved away into another job. She's now HR of some factory, and part of her job requirement is that she carry out the everyday tasks of the workers at every level to help point out health and safety issues. She had told somebody that she was apalled at the language she was hearing from people she worked with. Now, those who heard this shook their heads and said, oh what a shame, some people just don't know how to conduct themselves, it must be a horrible shock to go from a Christian working environment to a non-Christian one (a horrible, godless torture it must be), et cetera.
So I laughed at this, and a few of them gave me strange looks. And I thought about it a bit after the fact. And came to this conclusion.
Cultural, ethnic, religious groups, or groups that seem exclusive in the same way, are bad news. People from other cultural, ethnic or religious groups just don't mingle. Is that any way to encourage community and understanding?
Working at the Mission I've heard from a lot of people (or it seems like a lot) who were raised on Christian music, with Christian friends, who enrolled in Christian schools and Christian sports teams, and who now work for a Christian organization.
Now, it's not that I think there's anything fundamentally wrong with being Christian. You be Christian all you want, it doesn't bother me. But I see problems with limiting yourself to one channel for your learning and social life. Meeting different people and hearing different perspectives are what make someone a well-rounded, wise and capable individual. Limiting who you meet, what you do, what you hear, what you see, and where you go, will inhibit your growth.
It also apparently messes up your perception of others. No one is going to cater to your personal preferences in the public. The public wears obnoxious perfumes, the public dresses inappropriately. The public eats peanut butter in peanut-free zones. The public pisses on the seat and doesn't clean it up. And sometimes the public says fuck in front of you.
Can't take the heat? Go back to Jesus camp.
...
I don't think I wrote that well. Maybe next time I try to make a statement that involves a number of paragraphs I should make an outline first.
I heard a scrap of gossip today at work that got me into about 2-minutes of thinking (yes, I sacrificed 2 glorious minutes of zen-like blank-mindedness for thought, and I survived).
The problem with minorities is that they tend to stick together. Now, that has its good side and its bad side, but when someone's isolated inside their own familiar microcosm they lose the ability to function in a public environment.
Now, I overreacted to what I heard, and I'm blowing it out of proportion I'm sure, but here it is:
An old coworker married and moved away into another job. She's now HR of some factory, and part of her job requirement is that she carry out the everyday tasks of the workers at every level to help point out health and safety issues. She had told somebody that she was apalled at the language she was hearing from people she worked with. Now, those who heard this shook their heads and said, oh what a shame, some people just don't know how to conduct themselves, it must be a horrible shock to go from a Christian working environment to a non-Christian one (a horrible, godless torture it must be), et cetera.
So I laughed at this, and a few of them gave me strange looks. And I thought about it a bit after the fact. And came to this conclusion.
Cultural, ethnic, religious groups, or groups that seem exclusive in the same way, are bad news. People from other cultural, ethnic or religious groups just don't mingle. Is that any way to encourage community and understanding?
Working at the Mission I've heard from a lot of people (or it seems like a lot) who were raised on Christian music, with Christian friends, who enrolled in Christian schools and Christian sports teams, and who now work for a Christian organization.
Now, it's not that I think there's anything fundamentally wrong with being Christian. You be Christian all you want, it doesn't bother me. But I see problems with limiting yourself to one channel for your learning and social life. Meeting different people and hearing different perspectives are what make someone a well-rounded, wise and capable individual. Limiting who you meet, what you do, what you hear, what you see, and where you go, will inhibit your growth.
It also apparently messes up your perception of others. No one is going to cater to your personal preferences in the public. The public wears obnoxious perfumes, the public dresses inappropriately. The public eats peanut butter in peanut-free zones. The public pisses on the seat and doesn't clean it up. And sometimes the public says fuck in front of you.
Can't take the heat? Go back to Jesus camp.
...
I don't think I wrote that well. Maybe next time I try to make a statement that involves a number of paragraphs I should make an outline first.