{"id":384,"date":"2011-03-01T08:32:17","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T15:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/?p=384"},"modified":"2011-03-01T08:32:17","modified_gmt":"2011-03-01T15:32:17","slug":"commonality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/?p=384","title":{"rendered":"Commonality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I ranted about Black History Month and I left out what I think is an important point.\u00a0 The big thing I tried to say was calling it Black History Month draws attention to a single group’s struggle for civil rights when the issues for all<\/em> groups should be addressed.\u00a0 Calling attention to one is, in my opinion, detrimental to civil rights as a whole because it makes it seem like (in this case) skin color is worth fighting over.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Something very important to keep in mind here is there is a commonality to the entire human race.\u00a0 I know some bigots out there want to claim one group or another is somehow subhuman, but this is simply not a scientifically accurate point of view.\u00a0 Yes, there are some subtle differences between the races and some biologists see the races diverging, slowly speciating, but that is a process which could take a hundred thousand years or more.\u00a0 Even if what some people see as different races were somehow different species, that wouldn’t change much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the end, we are all human.\u00a0 We laugh, we cry, we get sick, we are healthy, we’re poor, we’re every condition one can think of.\u00a0 Everyone is born by one means or another.\u00a0 We come into existence, we have a childhood.\u00a0 Most survive childhood and become adults.\u00a0 Even as children, though, we go through many things in common.\u00a0 We suffer tragedies and enjoy celebrations.\u00a0 The poorer parts of the world, where food and \/ or water are scarce, suffer more tragedies while the rich find more reasons for celebration, but we all still have the capacity for both.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As adults, our commonality increases.\u00a0 We find and sometimes (perhaps often) lose love.\u00a0 Most bring children into the world, continuing the cycle of commonality.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And yet, there are also differences.\u00a0 No two of us are exactly alike, no matter how much it might seem to be the case for some pairs or groups of people.\u00a0 There’s a pair of conjoined twins who share a body but have different points of view, right down to their tastes in food.\u00a0 This is important, and our differences should be celebrated, but not to the point where our differences fuel bigotry and hatred.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is the point I did not bring up yesterday.\u00a0 I feel our humanity is a joyful thing, and this commonality I keep mentioning is best in a peaceful, non-ranting context.\u00a0 It’s a big reason we set aside a month or even a day to celebrate one group of humans, because it emphasizes the differences between us too much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My late best friend Brad was a different kind of person.\u00a0 He was in a wheelchair for much of his life.\u00a0 The one thing he struggled for most of all was acceptance.\u00a0 He wanted people to see past the wheelchair and see the brilliant man sitting in it.\u00a0 He earned four<\/em> college degrees, two master’s and two bachelor’s.\u00a0 And yet his own parents tried to have him declared incompetent of taking care of himself.\u00a0 All he wanted was acceptance, and it was the hardest thing to achieve.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is what everyone wants, what everyone needs above all else.\u00a0 We should all be able to be seen equally.\u00a0 We are all human.\u00a0 There is much diversity, but there is also a great deal in common.\u00a0 Let’s focus on that, and leave the bigotry behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I ranted about Black History Month and I left out what I think is an important point.\u00a0 The big thing I tried to say was calling it Black History Month draws attention to a single group’s struggle for civil rights when the issues for all groups should be addressed.\u00a0 Calling attention to one is, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}