Sunday, October 14, 2007
"real" differences
In my opinion the answer to this question is simple. A "real" difference is a fact that can be seen about a person without delving into their personality traits, morals, character etc. The following examples :"she has brown skin" , "he is a boy", "she is English", "he is catholic", are all "real" differences. If you make these observations about other people you aren't saying anything about them that is not fact. It is the assumptions that people make based on these facts that are not "real" differences. For example, if we say Johnny is Asian, that is a real difference. If we say Johnny is smart because he is Asian we are stereotyping because there is no way that we can know how smart Johnny is simply by reading a survey he filled out while applying to colleges and looking at his picture on facebook.
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4 comments:
Is stating something that is obvious real though? Someone might look brown but really be white and they just have a really really dark tan. Looks can be deceiving and might make something that looks real be in all actuality be fake. I will agree on the part of stereotyping but the "real" differences missed the point, I think.
I think that you are missing my point though Sam. If a person is white with a dark tan then they are brown. I'm not referring to brown as a nationality or race, but as the actual color that a person is. Thats what I mean about making assumptions off of observations. A person that has brown skin is not necessarily Indian, just like a person with white skin could essentially be Puerto Rican. So while I appreciate your input Sam you just reiterated the point I was making in the first place.
If real differences exist, what do we do with them? How do we handle them? How do real differences affect marginalization?
I don't know that you do anything with them; they just are. They shouldn't effect marginalization in that context. There will of course, always be the idea that some people prefer green skittles and others prefer red - but neither is associated with some particular idea of what people do and don't like them, we just accept that their different and that some are better than others.
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