11 Oct
2012
11 Oct
'12
7 a.m.
On Thu, 11 Oct 2012, Ian King wrote:
I get really tired of such meaningless
generalizations.
I'm currently in a graduate-level anthropology class where I deal with
this all the time: people who use "Western" (as in Western culture, as
distinct from pretty much any indigenous culture) as a swear word, people
who do not identify themselves as "Western" (despite having been born and
raised in the same country as I was) either implicitly assuming or
explicitly claiming that 99.9% of us are dumb as rocks and hateful as
Hitler... and people who DO identify as US citizens buying into and
promulgating this jaundiced self-image.
Yes, there's ignorance, bigotry and xenophobia masquerading as patriotism
in this country. Those things exist elsewhere, it just looks different
elsewhere.
Ian, the problem is that the dumbest of us is also the loudest of us and
the smartest of us can't be bothered to spend the energy required to shut
them up. :)
g.
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