I realize the human mind is divided in the way it functions...
Part of our mind likes to name and categorize and organize to make sense of the world. It is a function of how we learn. When we are first presented with new information that doesn't fit any schema, we must figure out everything we can about this thing so that when we are given another piece of information, we can know whether it fits with the earlier information or not.
As we age, most things are put in the specific boxes or files (or however you imagine your mental storage works) that already exists. Researchers say that it is actually good for us, however, to retain brain plasticity (neuroplasticity), which is the brains ability to reform its pathways (which most recently has been studied regarding people who have suffered brain damage of some sort). We don't have to have something traumatic happen to us to cause this rewiring of ourselves, though. New experiences, points of view, and neural challenges all aid in keeping our brain changeable and supple.
There has been a lot of segregation lately of different groups of people. It is always justified as necessary to give proper time and attention to those whom we term as "our own." But I have a problem with this. And it is that as long as there are camps of "us" and "other," it will always be easy to see the other as the enemy and not the friend who is just like us, but different.
I understand that using designations of straight, gay, leather, latex, poly, white, black, slave, Master, sadist, and so forth, all have some useful meaning. It allows us to have a vague notion of something in a very short amount of time. It gives us a schema for thinking about people and possible ways of approaching those people.
The problem comes when we believe we know everything about that person from those titles. We are tempted to think we know their entirety. We are also tempted to think that because they go into a separate box from us that they are "different" from us.
What happens when we have direct contact with people on a regular basis is that we start to notice how varied each of the people in our specific categories really are. I know a number of gay women. Each of them is very different, even if you start adding even more modifiers to them.
Or just to keep my ownership of this, let's take me for example. If I was going to try to start "self-identifying," I would say I am a middle-aged, white, heteroflexible, masochist, light sadist, polyamorous, occasionally submissive, urban, democratic female. I could go on with this list for a while. And it would tell you something about me. But it might not really tell you enough...
You're probably not going to know if you'd like to spend time with me until you meet me and we chat over a cup of tea. I have plenty of friends that are about as opposite of me as you can get, and I absolutely adore their company. So if it isn't always similarities that engender compatibility, what is it?
I think it is a most insidious thing, saying that exclusion of the "other" is ever a good thing. You may think you are not so much protecting your boundaries as keeping focus on your own back yard, so to speak. And that may be fine for a while...
But the problem comes when you no longer invite "others" into your backyard for BBQ. You never break bread with them. You say you have friends who are different, but if one were to look in your social circle, one would be hard-pressed to see those individuals. In the interest of being self-supporting, you have actually started to encourage a mindset that has potentially catastrophic consequences.
I once read a statement that said rape was a man's issue. Not in the way you might think at first blush. But it said that women could complain to other women until they were blue in the face about fighting rape, but it wasn't until you got men involved that it became useful at all. Men are the one who influence half (or more than half) of legal and social policy. Men are the ones who role-model for children what it means to be a man and how to treat women. And men are the ones who really are the key folks in making women feel safe in an environment.
I think that this is the same with "gay" issues. It's not until straight people sit down and decide that it's not acceptable to allow hate speech and discrimination that things actually start to move toward being different. There is power in numbers, and in standing in solidarity, we increase that power.
It is really easy to demonize those people we don't know. It is easy to lay blame at the doorstep of the neighbor whose children don't play with our children. It's easy to discriminate against someone who we don't see as "just like us."
If you don't think this is true, look at history. Go type the word "genocide" into your Google browser...
I appreciated the movie Bullworth, where Warren Beauty's character says, "Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color," when asked how racial issues might be dealt with. And while I love that notion, I know that homogeneity is not really the answer.
But I do think that there is real power in taking the time to get to know the actual people we meet before we shove them in a box and never think about who they really are again. I think there is power in knowing individuals, as opposed to blocks or types of people. I think our brains have the power to take a moment in it's organizational duties and attempt to think of the personal before the generic.
I use descriptors and titles to think about people, to be sure. My brain is just doing its job.
But I am looking forward to a time when I can sit down over tea, and all I'll be thinking about is "Isn't it nice that I'm having such a lovely time with Tim, who is just like me, but different."
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