[Vision2020] Taking charge of your own life...

[Melynda Huskey]

Don Kaag mentioned, in an earlier post, that he had a colleague who hated 
Affirmative Action because, as a black woman, she was always suspected of 
benefitting unfairly from it.

May I suggest that what your colleague hated, Don, was white racists and 
male sexists, not Affirmative Action?

It's tempting to imagine that in this day and age, there are no barriers to 
full equality among all people--that it's a failure of the individual will, 
not a bias in systems, that causes inequality.  It's particularly tempting 
for those of us who are on the top of the heap:  we got here 'cause we 
worked hard and deserve it, not because we've systematically benefitted from 
bias, right?

If you haven't seen it, Allan Johnson's *Privilege, Power, and Difference* 
is a thoughtful, brief, and easy-to-read treatment of the biases and 
privileges built into social life, in which we all participate, whether or 
not we as individuals wish to or intend to.

Melynda Huskey

"We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward 
weapons, for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever: this is our 
testimony to the whole world."
Quaker Declaration of 1660


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