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<p>Nick -</p>
<p>I think I may well know the man of whom you speak... he is in my
"second order circle" so I only see him while visiting certain
friends or at events we all share or the occasional criss-cross in
a public venue. I will try to remember to ask him if he
remembers YOU... question is which stereotype might I appeal to
to describe you to him? I won't speculate on what forms that
might take as I explore my own stereotypes, or worse yet, my
projections of what *his* stereotypes of you might be. If we
are talking about the same person I doubt he would have "avoided
you"... he has been fairly politely blunt with me a few times and
then resumed the jovial conversations we were having. He seemed
very practiced at navigating (not so) hidden judgements and
assumptions about him. <br>
</p>
<p>My own mother had a modest amount of self-awareness, growing up
in KY fairly proud of being a "Yankee" in the sense of north of
the Mason-Dixon and from a subculture that was too poor to have
ever risked owning a slave or having a close relative who did.
She lived with her aunt in the city of Frankfort during the school
year in the depression for lots of reasons. She was therefore
raised as an only child, her cousins having recently grown and
moved out of the family home. She tells an anecdote of having
developed a friendship with a girl who lived *somewhere* between
*her school* and her aunt's house... she would pause to play with
her every day after school until it got to where she started being
noticeably late home... when she told her aunt why she was late,
she said "why don't you just invite your friend home next time and
you can play here!"... she asked her friend who resisted for
about a week and then finally came home (her aunt married a
Scottish Doctor, so their home was very meticulous and in a nicer
neighborhood, but they lived crazy-frugal anyway) and after the
first day, her aunt very politely told her not to invite the
friend back, and in fact, was forbidden to play with her
anymore. The little girl was apparently the first black person
she had ever met and it was years later that she guessed that that
was what it was all about... her aunt was too "polite" to make a
deal about it and too "authoritarian" to be questioned. Later
her mother gave her a family heirloom which was referred to
colloquially as a "tar baby" which her mother explained to her had
been a type of doll that young girls were given to "play with" in
the style and memory of how their ancestors had been allowed to
"play with" the slave babies. Her mother explained how wrong
*all* of it was, from the slavery to the treating even the babies
as property, to replacing them post-emancipation with effigies,
etc. I learned this when she was unpacking from one of our moves
and it showed up in a cardboard barrel amongst her mother's (our
aunt's) china that we never used... my sister saw it and was
intrigued and "wanted to play with it" whereupon my mother tried
to explain all of this to us and then declaring that "the best
thing I can do is get rid of it, it is just a reflection of a bad
piece of history". I don't know if it went in the burn barrel
with our other trash or if she figured out some more respectful
disposal method... I would like to think she knew of a historian
or similar for whom such an artifact could be made meaningful.
This and other similar instances made me think that my parents
were the least prejudiced people I knew, until at 19 my sister who
had a small group of friends from college, one of who was African
American... my parents liked him a lot, he was a very sociable
and interesting person (his father was career military and his
mother had died when he was young and he and two sisters were
raised by "help"). But at some point, the friendship drifted
into the boyfriend zone and they very sternly, albeit
embarrassingly disabused me of the thought that they were not
prejudiced. I don't remember the exact conversations but it was
clear that they were very much against the relationship, even if
they didn't quite try to forbid their (adult) daughter from
continuing. I think they even enlisted one of their (more
openly) racist friends to have a conversation with her. It did
not sit well at all with me. But made me realize how hidden some
of these judgements, stereotypes, opinions, etc can be. I'm sure
I'm laced with junk like that.</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
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cite="mid:03b701d683b2$b2184280$1648c780$@gmail.com">
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<p class="MsoNormal">Dear fellow congregants,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the things we talk about is our
bemusement at Trump supporters. One expression you often hear
these supporters say is that they admire him because “He tells
it like it is!” They can say this while acknowledging that
almost everything he says is false. So, if he is lying most
of the time, what is he telling the truth about? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I think I know. As I keep insisting, I am
not a boomer. I am from the Silent Generation, the Lonely
Crowd. My mother’s life hero was Eleanor Roosevelt. It was
I, aged seven, who brought the news of the President’s death
to my parents, and I was startled to seem my mother burst into
tears. Crying was not her thing. My folks were publishers.
We had black, Jewish, gay, lesbian, working class, authors
visiting the house. But – and here is the point – when they
visited, they visited <i>as such.</i> Not that I was told as
a child explicitly, but it was conveyed to me as a child,
somehow, that these folks belonged to a different category.
And my education, in Massachusetts, in the 40’s, was devoid
of any explicit contact with anybody in any of these
categories. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ok, fast forward 70 years to Santa Fe. I
befriend at Ohoris an extremely tall black man, grizzled, slow
moving, thoughtful, with an intricate, international biography
full of remarkable connections and coincidences. He fits in
every conceivable way my childhood stereotype of the “old wise
black man”. I sit in rapt attention to his stories. I look up
to him, which, given his height, is my only choice. But, as we
continue to meet, a tension begins to rise between us that is
coming largely from me, but I cannot control. He becomes
aware that I am seeing him through the stereotype of the old
wise black man. Because I cannot admit to it, he is
imprisoned by it. <i>Our conversations are based on a lie.</i>
He disappears from Ohoris and I never see him again. He
would rather eschew good coffee, than live in my lie. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is what Donald Trump is truthful
about. He tells the truth about his own stereotypes. He is
truthful about himself. That what he believes is FALSE is
irrelevant to his base. He admits to thoughts which they know
many others find distasteful. It is hard to live in a world
which has moved on from one’s childhood, a world in which
others find one’s basic categorizations distasteful – in fact,
a world in which one finds one’s own basic categorizations
distasteful. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To break Trump we need to come to a new
understanding and acknowledgement of type-isms. There are
always going to be type-isms. We human beings do that sort of
thing. Raised in a particular way, at a particular time I see
a tall grizzled black man as wise, and everything he says and
does is read through that lens. That’s abduction. This
person wears a dress, this person is a woman, this person is
gentle, that ‘s abduction. (Well, it’s abduction-deduction,
but let that go.) Human beings naturally form identity groups
that trap ourselves and others in false abductions. So we
need to design our society to counter these. (Libertarians
beware. Here come Nick’s white vans, again) In this case the
white van takes the form of aggressive taxation of the rich
and aggressive education of the poor, and of institutions that
promote the random mixing of our citizens (like public
universities and armies – or conservation corps). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Could my friendship with the tall black guy
have been rescued? Could we have laughed about my
stereotypes? Perhaps I should have said, early on, “Look, I’m
sorry, I keep seeing you as Uncle Remus. I am sure, as I get
to know you better, I will get over it. Please be patient
with me, and please call me out whenever you feel confined by
it. ” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A Liberalism that does not free me is not
worth the name.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nick <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nicholas Thompson<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Emeritus Professor of Ethology and
Psychology<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clark University<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a
href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<br>
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