21-08-2022, 11:24 AM
I think it makes us among the privileged, who do not understand injustice, discrimination, racism - because we have never really experienced it. Or been alerted to it. If sexism is excluded that is, and ageism.
Funny thing, I am a fities child, but for years I was completely oblivious to the way we women were cut out of decisionmaking, the way we were ushered into defined roles and rendered powerless by the mechanisms and strategies of the community we were part of. Until Womens Lib... And still, the effects of racism escaped me, until I had a Maori lover and gave birth to his daughter. Raising her was a real life lesson in the way that same community treats Maori.
Unless it directly impacts our life, lots of the challenges other people endure remain out of sight for many of us. Perhaps it is only when we are forced by life to face some previously unnoticed realities, that we can begin to make changes, in ourselves, and the society that supports us.
Funny thing, I am a fities child, but for years I was completely oblivious to the way we women were cut out of decisionmaking, the way we were ushered into defined roles and rendered powerless by the mechanisms and strategies of the community we were part of. Until Womens Lib... And still, the effects of racism escaped me, until I had a Maori lover and gave birth to his daughter. Raising her was a real life lesson in the way that same community treats Maori.
Unless it directly impacts our life, lots of the challenges other people endure remain out of sight for many of us. Perhaps it is only when we are forced by life to face some previously unnoticed realities, that we can begin to make changes, in ourselves, and the society that supports us.