Matthea Little Smith said:
"I am not saying those that don't look like me
will purposefully misrepresent me, but I truly
would feel more comfortable with someone that I
know has demonstrated they have the same or
similar values making major decisions about my
life."
------------------------------------------------
I'm sorry that Matthea feels this way. Reminds me of my 1993 primary
campaign for 7th Ward City Council. One woman I doorknocked in Bryn
Mawr told me flat out: "I never vote for a man."
Personally I think it is prejudicial to say you don't trust a person
(intentions aside) to represent you because they are white or because
they are hetrosexual or because they are male.
Regrettably by her post Matthea encourages other people to practice the
same prejudice she feels. Which in turn builds walls of suspicion and
distrust, that only get higher over time. (Let's all sit by ourselves
in the cafeteria.)
How would it strike people if I were to post and say that I don't trust
a woman, or a gay, or a non-Caucasian (whatever that is), or who isn't a
eastern european heritage, over 50 Access programmer who lives downtown
to represent me? How small can we make our boxes. Maybe we can ask the
former Yugoslavians. They paid a heavy price for "purity" of
representation and governance.
Identity politics is a dangerous practice--and the end game is
disasterous for a large multi-ethnic, racial and religious country.
My attempted solution? I think about what sociologists call "primary
identities," those boxes you use to quickly categorize yourself and
others. You know, when you first see a person coming towards you from a
distance, and start to put your perceptions around them. By sex (or if
you prefer, gender), age, race, SES, disability status. A bunch of
ready boxes. Each of us is more than those boxes--remember the great
line in Anne Hall where Carole Kane rebukes Woody Allen for trying to
reduce her to a cultural stereotype.
I try to realize these boxes are glib, lazy shortcuts for not having to
deal with people as human beings--so you can deal with them I-It rather
than I-Thou.
I will say that Judeo-Christians have a head start because practicing
ones see each person as created in God's image, and therefore deserving
of dignity and respect. (Hitler and Stalin didn't worry about
respecting humans if they thought they could perfect their worlds' by
killing a few million here or there.)
But none of us are saints, and there is a limit to how much you can make
people be good, and marketeers and politicians make their livings by
playing the stereotype game anyway. So shunning stereotypes is
something that is more reserved as a task for each of us individually.
I have another solution that relates to policy. This solution plays off
of Matthea's concern about other people "making major decisions about my
life."
Make sure that we limit the power of institutions, corporate and
governmental, to make such decisions. We need to control monopolistic
power of mega-corporations. But big government is also a threat. The
more we concentrate the regulatory, criminal law, and taxing powers, the
more vulnerable we are to the abuse of such powers by the political
types and self-seekers who hunger for power. That is what is so great
about American--limited government, balance of powers, decentralization
of powers between states and federal government, explicit Bill of Rights
("negative" rights about what government can not do to you). That is
your bulwark against representatives you don't like. They can't
(routinely) take people out in the middle of the night and have them
shot, or take away their savings and livelihood.
I recognize the need for government, but one that rests lightly on the
shoulders, and shows some humility of form and purpose.
Alan Shilepsky
Downtown Minneapolis
working to overcome his own stereotypes, and believing we need more
scientific training for our youth, so they will question the world
and be open to the lessons of experience.
_______________________________________
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