Voting: Remembering What My Dad Told Me About Prejudice And We, His Children (+)
by: Autumn Sandeen
Mon Nov 03, 2008 at 11:30:00 AM EST

http://pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=FF534B238AF1F78DE355EAFC7AF4B719?diaryId=7968

Tomorrow I'm going around the corner to vote at the YMCA Youth Center here in my hometown of San Diego, California. And, I'll be thinking youth in California; thinking about the their future.

Today I'm thinking about what my Dad told me a few months before he passed away in 2002.

I was raised up in Granada Hills, California. My neighborhood was mixed race -- Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asian-Americans all lived in my neighborhood, and all went to school with me. In the last few months of his life, what my Dad told me about why we moved  us -- his family -- to a mixed race neighborhood actually surprised me. He told me that he didn't want his children to be prejudiced against others, so he wanted us to be raised in a diverse neighborhood where we would be exposed to all kinds of people.

And guess why what Autumn's dad did works?

Because it's ever so different to atavistically hate those you are consistently among at close quarters than those you shun. Why, because of the very human ability to relate to others compassionately most of the time when you share their struggles and lives daily.

That's why the rage against integration and rubbing elbows regularly with people not exactly like you. Of course I can't relate to them if I consistently hold the position that they are "not like us." Hatred and atavistic reactions flow from ignorance.

When you congregate with the "other" the other starts to look more and more like yourself.

Nikki

Hatred and atavistic reactions flow from ignorance.

A point constantly proven on these boards, in part by articles put up by people who hate us, but - and not a small amount of the time - by the very people who live here.

Awesome dear.  Love it.

Thanks, tekla.

Well, true is true.  It's hard to hate what you really know.  You might not like it, but hate is born our of not knowing at all.

I know a lot of people, some of which I don't agree with.  And some of which, I don't agree with BIG TIME, as Dick Cheney might say (after shooting them).  But I don't hate them.