spark of controversy

in the interest of disclosure, i am going to go on record as saying- i am a white woman, mid-thirties who has lived predominately in rural and semi-rural settings my entire life. i have never been a part of any organization and, indeed, have more of the go-it-alone sentiment over grouping together. alright, i guess i grew up thinking- if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. so- with that in mind- i am completely out of my understanding or depth with tackling this topic i am about to throw out there. i am not a person of color and i am not a feminist. consequently, i know next to nothing about either. i guess it’s rather simplistic of me to say i am a humanist- i try to see people as people regardless of race or gender. now, that doesn’t mean i always succeed. societal implants are hard to change when you have lived them for 36 years- but i am trying.

as i have said before, i attempt to learn from folks- and tooling around the blogosphere- i get to learn quite a bit. i really feel that we have to challenge ourselves to think outside of ourselves once in awhile- and if these last 8 years plus haven’t done that- well, you must be a neo con. yes, that was snarky. this particular democratic primary has raised some important topics that we need to be having as a society- and as a planet really. i recently finished national geographic’s february issue- and the article on the ‘black pharaohs‘ got me thinking. the article basically said that in the ancient world, there wasn’t racism per se.

“The ancient world was devoid of racism. At the time of Piye’s historic conquest, the fact that his skin was dark was irrelevant. Artwork from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome shows a clear awareness of racial features and skin tone, but there is little evidence that darker skin was seen as a sign of inferiority. Only after the European powers colonized Africa in the 19th century did Western scholars pay attention to the color of the Nubians’ skin, to uncharitable effect.”

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