If "race" is social, what about sickle-cell and forensic anthropology?

I noticed your reply to one of the questions asking about race and intelligence, you explained that race is a social construct and not a biological reality. I've heard this stated before but, it's never quite made sense to me. If this was the case, why do we see diseases like sickle cell affecting only specific racial groups and how could forensic anthropologists determine race from skeletal remains? I would agree with your answer, there isn't any relation between race and intelligence but, perhaps you could elaborate on your explanation. You seem to have some expertise in the field and I feel like I'm missing something here :P

-Alex


*

Hey Alex!

Wow, I am so impressed that you would ask such a thoughtful and well-formed question. I'll try to break my answer down to address the two (related) parts: what do I mean by saying "race is a social construct" and how does this idea correspond to what we know are genetically inheritable traits like sickle-cell anemia. It's a complex and counter-intuitive topic that I take over a week to cover in my class, so I hope my response is not overwhelming.

1) Race as a social construct:

Humans as a species ARE genetically diverse; no one is denying that. However, the idea that what "race" someone is tells you something definite about their DNA is misleading. Our ideas about "race", even though we often think they are based on biological lines and categories, are actually decisions we make -- depending on WHICH parts of our diversity we decide are important.

First of all, how many races ("biological categories") are there supposed to be? In the 1950s, my dad was taught that there were four (and please forgive the antiquated language): "caucasoid," "negro", "mongoloid", and "Australian bushman". Yet our ideas about how many races there are change over time -- you could just as easily find reasons to say there are six categories instead of four, or thirty racial categories instead of six.

The point is that there are no clear biological boundaries that categorize people into a certain number of groups; there is a broad and complex continuum of gene flows across the world, and where we decide to draw racial lines is a cultural, legal, and political decision, which may have little to do even with the "obvious", genetic differences it claims to.

Take skin colour, for example. There are no CLEAR categories that can be made based on skin colour. Two people with identically dark skin may be from two different "races" / ancestral backgrounds: (say one person is "black-West African" and the other "caucasian-Southern Indian"). Two people with objectively different skin tones - one with a pale tan colour and one with dark brown -- may both be identified as "black" -- (or both as "caucasian").

Also, the criteria for who belongs to which race also change over time, and across space -- based on people's ideas. In much of history, arguments were made about Jewish people being of a "different race" than Aryans, or Irish as racially different from the English -- yet today most people regard them as all simply "white". Someone who is considered "black" in the U.S. may travel to South Africa or Brazil and find that they are actually "white" - or another category - there. In each case, people are assigning racial labels which they think says something signficant about biology, but which are really based on different cultural ideas about what "race" means in that place, and about who belongs to which one.

The relatively new ability to map human DNA also tells us interesting things. First, that there is far more genetic diversity among members of any one "race" than there is between two people from different races. Anyone who is perceived as descending from African ancestors is classified with one racial term: "black". But two people from different parts of Africa might share nothing in common genetically (besides the 99.9% of our genes that ALL humans share). Meanwhile, Alex, although you and I are both "white", you could be far more genetically similar to Don Cheadle than to me. It's easy to be mislead when we look to visible human differences, thinking they correspond to deeper genetic similarities. Yet most of our genetic diversity is non-visible, and is shared by people of all "races".

The point is, what we mean by "black" and "white" is more than an observation about actual genetic categories (which don't exist); it is a subjective decision we are making, based on many factors, and the criteria change through space and time (social construct).



2) why do we see diseases like sickle cell affecting only specific racial groups and how could forensic anthropologists determine race from skeletal remains?

Sickle cell is a great example in this context. We know it is a genetic trait, and that it occurs much more frequently in some human populations than others. Yet a closer examination of the distribution of the sickle-cell trait reveals that it is not actually mapped onto racial lines at all, but rather onto something else: the presence of malaria.

Most individuals with sickle-cell trait are at an evolutionary disadvantage: they are much more likely to die than their neighbours, so the trait is selected against and is uncommon in most areas. However, for some reason, carrying the sickle-cell genes provides natural protection against malaria. In areas of the world where malaria is widespread, then, individuals with sickle-cell are more likely to survive than their neighbours, and the trait is selected FOR.

By comparing distribution maps, (see http://images.sciencedaily.com/2010/11/101102130133-large.jpg) we can see that sickle-cell trait (center map) is prevalent in parts of Africa as well as the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and India -- all parts of the world where malaria (bottom map) is common. Although it is genetic, the trait crosses several perceived "racial" lines. At the same time, the perception of sickle-cell as an "African" or "black" trait is also misleading, as the trait is NOT prevalent in, for instance, southern or eastern African populations, even though the peoples there are certainly normally considered "black".

(This, incidentally, puts us right back to your first question. What do we mean by calling all people from Africa "black", as if to imply that they all had something genetically in common that other races don't have? Why aren't there more perceived racial groups within Africa? And indeed there certainly have been, depending on whom and when in history you ask).

Similarly, forensic scientists can tell certain things about a person's probable ancestry, and how they looked, by the structure of their skull bones. Yet these things still require culturally-based interpretation to deduce their "race". Skull A appears to be from a person of Turkish descent. Does that make them the same race as you, or a different one? That's a cultural decision. Skull B appears to be very similar to those of people from northern Europe. Does that mean that that person shares ANYTHING genetically in common with you? Not necessarily.

Alex, this was a very long answer, about a very complex topic, and I hope it has been at least a little helpful. Even though I teach this concept for a living (!), I am still learning about it myself, and I would be really interested if you had any thoughts or comments on ... well, anything that just got said!

Daye

White Flag Warriors

Today's scriptural "reading" is from the Flobots:

White Flag Warriors (lyrical excerpts):

We request to negotiate
We come to you unarmed
We desire to communicate
You cannot do us harm

They say war is necessary
But we say war is child abuse

We'd rather make our children
martyrs than murderers

This is love, this is not treason

*

You can listen to the whole song at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsgbb23z27w

What do anthropologists mean when they say that "race" is "imagined but not imaginary"?

So part of my class's anthropology quiz this week asked my students to respond to the above question. My friend was helping me revise the test earlier and he asked me what a 5/5 answer would look like for this question. My response to my friend is as follows.

*

A 5/5 answer could be quite simple, but needs to address at least the following two points:

1) Race is “imagined”: ideas/categories about race are “socially constructed”, not “biologically real”; they are not confirmed by DNA, genetics, any other quantitative analysis, but are based on learned ideas about "difference" that change over time and space.
2) Race is “not imaginary”: just because it’s not “biologically real”, doesn’t mean it’s not still powerful. Ideas about “race” have profoundly shaped the world we live in – racism is very real, with very real social, economic, etc. consequences that affect how people from different “races” may live their lives.

Now, I know how weird it sounds to say that “race is not biology”, particularly to a science major. But if you have the patience, here is my much more thorough answer, to explain:

When anthropologists say that the concept of “race” is “imagined, but not imaginary,” they mean that it is socially constructed (rather than biologically “real”), but that the effects that believing in “race” has on our society are indeed very real and not imaginary.

To open our minds to this idea, let’s consider something else that is “imagined but not imaginary”, with an example of paper money. The idea that paper money has value is “imagined” – it is a social idea, rather than being based on anything inherently “real” or “true” about the paper itself. However, because it is imagined, and because it is imagined by so many people at the same time, it has real consequences, in the world we live in, and so is “not imaginary”. Whether or not someone has that piece of paper can make a real difference to whether they eat that day, where they sleep, and how they are treated by other members of that society.

When most people identify someone’s “race”, they believe they are talking about a biological fact about that person. However, closer examination reveals that ideas about “who is a member of which race”, “how many races there are”, and what the criteria are for each, are decisions that change throughout time and from place to place. What it means to be “black” is not a genetic category or even, counterintuitively, dependent on skin colour. Many people with very dark skin are not identified as “black” but rather as East Indian or Australian. At the same time, people who are identified as “black” have a huge range of actual skin tones, light to dark, which overlap with skin tones from other “races”. Africa is the most genetically diverse continent on the planet, yet often people from any part of it are all labelled “black”, as if this signified that they had something (biological) in common, even when they have less genetically in common with each other than in comparison to a “white” person.

Finally, what it means to be “black” changes over time, and from place to place. The meaning and criteria of being “black” in the U.S. is not the same as “black” in Brazil or “black” in South Africa. In other words, although humans do have biological and genetic diversity, that diversity is a continuum and does not divide itself into neat categories. The creation of neat boundaries and particular racial categories is social, and therefore “imagined”.

However, although race is not “biologically real”, this does not mean that the concept has no social effects, or consequences. Ideas about race have fundamentally shaped societies around the world. For instance, the idea that “blacks” and “whites” are different groups of people was foundational to the 17th century slave trade. The idea that “Jews” were racially or biologically different than “Aryans”, or "Hutus" from "Tutsis," or “Irish” people from “English” fuelled very real persecution and genocides. “Racial” categories continue to inform social realities today. What “race” you are identified as will have a real correlation with or effect on where you grow up, where you are likely to work, how much you will earn, how you will be treated by law enforcement, and what assumptions people will make about you. Therefore, as we can see, although “race” is not “biology”, the effects of “race” are very real and not imaginary.

*

Author’s anecdote: As an eighteen-year-old first-year anthropology student rightly confused as sh*t by this very novel concept, I went to my professor’s office hours with a question.

“What do you mean, race is not biological?” I asked. “If a black father and a black mother have a baby, won’t it be black?”

“Yes,” he said, humoring me, “but what do you mean by black?”

And seven years later here I am.

Week of February 5: Free Will Astrology

“Publishing a volume of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo,” said author Don Marquis, speaking from experience. Something you’re considering, Leo, may seem to fit that description, too. It’s a project or action or gift that you’d feel good about offering, but you also wonder whether it will generate the same buzz as that rose petal floating down into the Grand Canyon. Here’s what I think: To the degree that you shed your attachment to making an impact, you will make the exact impact that matters most. Give yourself without any expectations.

My good friend read this to me over the phone in a huge, amazingly sunny field today. I was just biking on my way to the ocean. I asked him to read it again. He indulged me. I asked to call him back. Finished making my way to the seawall, touched the salt water. There is something I've been considering doing, but hesitating. Hearing my friend read that horoscope opened me up to the reason I was hesitating -- because I knew I was still too attached to do it well. So I'm still waiting, but relaxed, unhurried, recommitted. It's rather Bgvd-Gita ish, isn't it? :)

Update finally

So I know, I've fallen right off the bandwagon with this whole posting-the-scriptures-I'm-reading thing. I actually haven't stopped reading them -- on the contrary, I'm reading more than ever, including scriptures/spiritual or uplifting or inspirational ET CETERA readings from:

Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist,

Dan Savage (syndicated sex advice columnist) on love, relationships and building a meaningful, compassionate, honest, autonomous identity for yourself independent from a partner (whether you have one at the time or not),

Cormac McCarthy's The Road (I picked this up in the staff room at work two days ago and didn't get up again until I finished it four hours later ... oh such a fine, crafted author McCarthy is),

Jared Diamond's The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee

David Cruise & Alison Griffiths' Vancouver - an historical fiction novel spanning some 20,000-ish years of NW Coast history.

"Eating Christmas in the Kalahari" by Richard B. Lee (which I really should post for you here in a minute, it's a great true short story),

An amazing horoscope my friend read me today (okay, I will look that one up for you and post it, it was very meaningful) ... hang on ...

So, I've been having some great insights thanks to this project, which after all was focused on getting me to read more scriptures and not necessarily to blog about them, which started as a side project. And YES, all of those things DO count as scriptural readings, INCLUDING Dan Savage; it's my "scripture project" and if it can include Robert Frost it can include whomever I please and am inspired by :)

January 16: Ethics and the Dalai Lama

Certainly each of the major religious traditions has a well-developed ethical system. However, the difficulty with tying our understanding of right and wrong to religion is that we must then ask, "Which religion?" Which articulates the most complete, the most accessible, the most acceptable system? The arguments would never stop. Moreover, to do so would be to ignore the fact that many who reject religion do so out of convictions sincerely held, not merely because they are unconcerned with the deeper questions of human existence. We cannot suppose that such people are without a sense of right and wrong or of what is morally appropriate just because some who are anti-religion are immoral. Besides, religious belief is no guarantee of moral integrity. Looking at the history of our species, we see that among the major troublemakers - those who visited violence, brutality and destruction on their fellow human beings - there have been many who professed religious faith, often loudly. Religion can help us establish basic ethical principles. Yet we can still talk about ethics and morality without having recourse to religion.

Again, it could be objected that if we do not accept religion as the source of ethics, we must allow that people's understanding of what is good and right, of what is wrong and bad, of what is morally appropriate and what is not, of what constitutes a positive act and what a negative act must vary according to circumstances and even from person to person. But here let me say that no one should suppose it could ever be possible to devise a set of rules or laws to provide us with the answer to every ethical dilemma, even if we were to accept religion as the basis of morality. Such a formulaic approach could never hope to capture the richness and diversity of human experience. It would also give grounds for arguing that we are responsible only to the letter of those laws, rather than for our actions.

From His Holiness the Dalai Lama 1999 Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the new millennium. London: Abacus. p. 27-28 (emphasis mine).

January 15: C.S. Lewis on space and the faculty of recognition

Space-travel really has nothing to do with the matter. To some, God is discoverable everywhere; to others, nowhere. Those who do not find Him on earth are unlikely to find Him in space. (Hang it all, we're in space already; every year we go a huge circular tour in space.) But send a saint up in a spaceship and he'll find God in space as he found God on earth. Much depends upon the seeing eye.
...
Indeed the expectation of finding God by astronautics would be very like trying to verify or falsifythe divinity of Christ by taking specimens of His blood or dissecting Him. And in their own way they did both. But they were no wiser than before. What is required is a certain faculty of recognition.

If you do not at all know God, of course you will not recognize Him, either in Jesus or in outer space.

The fact that we have not found God in space does not, then, bother me in the least. Nor am I much concerned about the 'space race' between America and Russia. The more money, time, skill and zeal they both spend on that rivalry, the less, we may hope, they will have to spend on armaments. Great powers might be more usefully, but are seldom less dangerously, employed than in fabricating costly objects and flinging them, as you might say, overboard. Good luck to it! It is an excellent way of letting off steam.

Lewis, C. S. 1967. Christian Reflections United Kingdom: Fount Paperbacks. p 213, 215.

January 14: Bhagavad-Gita the Third Teaching: Discipline of Action

Krishna says:

Whatever a leader does,
the ordinary people also do.
He sets the standard
for the world to follow.

In the three worlds,
there is nothing I must do,
nothing unattained to be attained,
yet I engage in action.

What if I did not engage
relentlessly in action?
Men retrace my path
at every turn, Arjuna

These worlds would collapse
if I did not perform action;
I would create disorder in society,
living beings would be destroyed.

As the ignorant act with attachment
to actions, Arjuna,
so wise men should act with detachment
to preserve the world.

No wise man disturbs the understanding
of ignorant men attached to action;
he should inspire them,
performing all actions with discipline.

Actions are all effected
by the qualities of nature;
but deluded by individuality,
the self thinks, "I am the actor."

When he can discriminate
the actions of nature's qualities
and think, "The qualities depend
on other qualities," he is detached.

Those deluded by the qualities of nature
are attached to their actions;
a man who knows this should not upset
these dull men of partial knowledge.

Surrender all actions to me,
and fix your reason on your inner self;
without hope or possessiveness,
your fever subdued, fight the battle!


-- excerpted from the Bhagavad-Gita, the Third Teaching: Discipline of Action (21-30)

January 13: Robert Frost Stopping by Woods

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.


-- I was reciting this poem to myself as I was biking home from a friend's house downtown, late at night, biking down quiet streets through the first snow of the year, thick flakes carpeting the pavement.

January 12: Christopher Hitchens

In Sri Lanka once, I was traveling in a car with a group of Tamils, on a relief expedition to a Tamil area of the coastline that had been hard-hit by a cyclone. My companions were all members of the Sai Baba sect, which is very strong in South India and Sri Lanka. Sai Baba himself has claimed to raise the dead, and makes a special on-camera performance of producing holy ash from his bare palms. (Why ash? I used to wonder.)

Anyway, the trip began with my friends breaking some coconuts on a rock to ensure a safe journey. This evidently did not work, because halfway across the island our driver plowed straight into a man who staggered out in front of us as we were racing, too fast, through a village. The man was horribly injured and - this being a Sinhala village - the crowd that instantly gathered was not well disposed to these Tamil intruders. It was a very sticky situation, but I was able to defuse it somewhat by being an Englishman wearing an off-white Graham Greene type suit, and by having press credentials that had been issued by the London Metropolitan Police. This impressed the local cop enough to have us temporarily released, and my companiions, who had been very scared indeed, were more than grateful for my presence and for my ability to talk fast. In fact, they telephoned their cult headquarters to announce that Sai Baba himself had been with use, in the temporary shape of my own person. From then on, I was treated literally with reverece, ad not allowed to carry anything or fetch my own food. It did occur to me meanwhile to check on the man we had run over: he had died of his injuries in hospital. (I wonder what his horoscope had foreshadowed for that day.) Thus in miniature I saw how one mere human mammal - myself - can suddenly begin to attract shy glances of awe and wonder, and how another human mammal - our luckless victim - could be somehow irrelevant to Sai Baba's benign design.

Hitchens, Christopher. 2007. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Toronto ON: McClelland & Stewart. p. 75-76

January 11: giving in charity (hadith)

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "Every Muslim has to give in charity." The people then asked: "(But what) if someone has nothing to give, what should he do?" The Prophet replied: "He should work with his hands and benefit himself and also give in charity (from what he earns)." The people further asked: "If he cannot find even that?" He replied: "He should help the needy who appeal for help." Then the people asked: "If he cannot do (even) that?" The Prophet said finally: "Then he should perform good deeds and keep away from evil deeds, and that will be regarded as charitable deeds."

- Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 2, Hadith 524

... thinking more about giving and sharing today.

January 10: Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1376

The Prophet Muhammad (s) said: “Do not turn away a poor man…even if all you can give is half a date. If you love the poor and bring them near you…God will bring you near Him on the Day of Resurrection.”——— Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1376.

January 9: Tolstoy - Beyond Rational Knowledge

Beyond Rational Knowledge

16 So that besides rational knowledge, which had seemed to me the only knowledge, I was inevitably brought to acknowledge that all live humanity has another irrational knowledge — faith which makes it possible to live. Faith still remained to me as irrational as it was before, but I could not but admit that it alone gives mankind a reply to the questions of life, and that consequently it makes life possible. Reasonable knowledge had brought me to acknowledge that life is senseless — my life had come to a halt and I wished to destroy myself. Looking around on the whole of mankind I saw that people live and declare that they know the meaning of life. I looked at myself—I had lived as long as I knew a meaning of life and had made life possible.

17 And I turned to the examination of that same theology which I had once rejected with such contempt as unnecessary. Formerly it seemed to me a series of unnecessary absurdities, when on all sides I was surrounded by manifestations of life which seemed to me clear and full of sense; now I should have been glad to throw away what would not enter a healthy head, but I had nowhere to turn to. . .

18 I shall not seek the explanation of everything. I know that the explanation of everything, like the commencement of everything, must be concealed in infinity. But I wish to understand in a way which will bring me to what is inevitably inexplicable. I wish to recognize anything that is inexplicable as being so not because the demands of my reason are wrong (they are right, and apart from them I can understand nothing), but because I recognize the limits of my intellect. I wish to understand in such a way that everything that is inexplicable shall present itself to me as being necessarily inexplicable, and not as being something I am under an arbitrary obligation to believe.

That there is truth in the teaching is to me indubitable, but it is also certain that there is falsehood in it, and I must find what is true and what is false, and must disentangle the one from the other.

January 8 - The Ethic of Compassion, Dalai Lama

January 8
Excerpt from "The Ethic of Compassion" in Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium by the Dalai Lama.

We noted earlier that all the world's major religions stress the importance of cultivating love and compassion. In the Buddhist philosophical tradition, different levels of attainment are described. At a basic level, compassion (nying je) is understood mainly in terms of empathy - our ability to enter into and, to some extent, share others' suffering. But Buddhists - and perhaps others - believe that this can be developed to such a degree that not only does our compassion arise without any effort, but it is unconditional, undifferentiated and universal in scope. A feeling of intimacy toward all other sentient beings, including, of course, those who would harm us, is generated. This is likened in the literature to the love a mother has for her only child.

....

Consider, too, that habitually our feelings toward others depend very much on their circumstances. Most people, when they see someone who is handicapped, feel sympathetic toward that person. But when they see others who compared with themselves are wealthier, or better educated, or better placed socially, they immediately feel envious and competitive toward them. Our negative feelings prevent us from seeing the sameness of ourselves and all others. We forget that just like us, whether fortunate or unfortunate, distant or near, they desire to be happy and not to suffer.

...

Compassion and love are not mere luxuries. As the source both of inner and external peace, they are fundamental to the continued survival of our species. On the one hand, they constitute non-violence in action. On the other, they are the source of all spiritual qualities: of forgiveness, tolerance and all the virtues. Moreover, they are the very things that give meaning to our activities. They are what makes them constructive. There is nothing amazing about being highly educated; there is nothing amazing about being rich. Only when the individual has a warm heart do these attributes become worthwhile.

January 7: Christopher Hitchens; God is Not Great

January 7
Hitchens, Christopher God is Not Great p 61

There is a celebrated story from Puritan Massachusetts in the late eighteenth century. During a session of the state legislature, the sky suddenly became leaden and overcast at midday. Its threatening aspect – a darkeness at noon – convinced many legislators that the event so much on their clouded minds was imminent. They asked to suspend business and go home to die. The speaker of the assembly, Abraham Davenport, managed to keep his nerve and dignity. “Gentlemen,” he said, “either the Day of Judgment is here or it is not. If it is not, there is no occasion for alarm and lamentation. If it is, however, I wish to be found doing my duty. I move, therefore, that candles be brought.” In his own limited and superstitious day, this was the best that Mr. Davenport could do. Nonetheless, I second his motion.

-- Christopher Hitchens is a lovely, well-researched humanist.

January 6: Why the Crocodile does not eat the Hen

January 6
XXX. Why the Crocodile does not eat the Hen
a Republic of the Congo story, recorded by Richard Edward Dennett
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/fjort/fjo33.htm

There was a certain hen; and she used to go down to the river's edge daily to pick up bits of food. One day a crocodile came near to her and threatened to eat her, and she cried: "Oh, brother, don't!"
And the crocodile was so surprised and troubled by this cry that he went away, thinking how he could be her brother. He returned again to the river another day, fully determined to make a meal of the hen.
But she again cried out: "Oh, brother, don't!”
"Bother the hen!" the crocodile growled, as she once more turned away. "How can I be her brother? She lives in a town on land; I live in mine in the water."
Then the crocodile determined to see Nzambi about the question, and get her to settle it; and so he went his way. He had not gone very far when he met his friend Mbambi (a very large kind of lizard). " Oh, Mbambi!" he said, "I am sorely troubled. A nice fat hen comes daily to the river to feed; and each day, as I am about to catch her, and take her to my home and feed on her, she startles me by calling me 'brother.' I can't stand it any longer; and I am now off to Nzambi, to hold a palaver about it."
"Silly idiot!" said the Mbambi, do nothing of the sort, or you will only lose the palaver and show your ignorance. Don't you know, dear crocodile, that the duck lives in the water and lays eggs? the turtle does the same; and I also lay eggs. The hen does the same; and so do you, my silly friend. Therefore we are all brothers in a sense." And for this reason the crocodile now does not eat the hen.

- and cue the social construction of difference!!

January 5: Be Not Afraid

January 5
Shivers, Tim. 2009. Be Not Afraid in Vancouver Dialogues.

It is no wonder that so many sacred texts are focused on the issue of fear. "Be not afraid" is God's most common greeting in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. …. We don't have to trust sacred texts to believe that otherness produces fear. Throughout human history, communities and nations have regularly reacted with fear to the presence of the different - whether that difference is a result of ethnicity, religion, national identity or disability. The history of war is dominated by the fear of one group for another as is the history of religious intolerance. And when it comes to disability, especially inellectual disability, the track record is horrific. "Imbeciles," "idiots," and "morons," have been mockingly labeled, brutally killed, shuttered in prison-like institutions, and relegated to the back rooms of shame and disgust. The presence of those who seem wholly "other" among us has never been easy or smooth. It's not easy to "be not afraid."

- A friend wrote me today on this subject, responding to this article which I sent him a short while ago. (Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering). It was hard today to “be not afraid”. Letting go of anger opened my heart up to much hurt. It was a day of feeling pain, and letting that happen. I went for a walk with another friend and opened up. “You’ll know when it’s the right time to write him back,” he says quietly.

January 4: Old Testament, Psalm 100

January 4
Old Testament, Psalm 100
1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

- Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands!

January 3: Zhuangzi Section 7

January 3
Zhuangzi Section 7 (end)
The emperor of the South Sea was called Shu [Brief], the emperor of the North Sea was called Hu [Sudden], and the emperor of the central region was called Hundun [Chaos]. Shu and Hu from time to time came together for a meeting in the territory of Hundun, and Hundun treated them very generously. Shu and Hu discussed how they could repay his kindness. “All men,” they said, “have seven openings so they can see, hear, eat, and breath. But Hundun alone doesn’t have any. Let’s try boring him some!”
Every day they bored another hole, and on the seventh day Hundun died.

- I like this one, although I’m not entirely sure why. Cultural relativity? :)

January 2: Mencius Book IV Part A

January 2
Mencius Book IV Part A
4. Mencius said, “If others do not respond to your love with love, look into your own benevolence; if others fail to respond to your attempts to govern them with order, look into your own wisdom; if others do not return your courtesy, look into your own respect. In other words, look into yourself whenever you fail to achieve your purpose. When you are correct in your person, the Empire will turn to you. The Odes say, “Long may he be worthy of Heaven’s Mandate, / And find for himself much good fortune.” (Ode 235).”

- this reminds me of what I said to mom & dad recently, that if other people were not responding to the attempt to reach out and offer a dialogue, perhaps we could reflect on how we were offering and if there was a way we could make it more accessible to them, to make more space for them to respond.

January 1: Mencius Book I Part A

January 1
Mencius Book I Part A

3. King Hui of Liang said, “I have done my best for my state. When crops failed in Ho Nei I moved the populatino to Ho Tung and the grain to Ho Nei, and reversed the action when crops failed in Ho Tung. I have not noticed any of my neighbours taking as much pains over his government. Yet how is it the population of the neighbouring states has not decresed and mine has not increased?” …
(Mencius says) “If you do not interfere with the busy seasons in the fields, then there will be more grain than the people can eat; if you do not allow nets with too fine a mesh to be used in large ponds, then there will be more fish and turtles than they can eat; if hatchets and axes are permitted in the forests on the hills only in the proper seasons, then there will be more timber than they can use. When the people have more grain, more fish and turtles than they can eat, and more timber than they can use, then in the support of their parents when alive and in the mourning of them when dead, they will be able to have no regrets over anything left undone. For the people not to have any regrets over anything left undone, whether in the support of their parents when alive or in the mourning of them when dead, is the first step along the Kingly way. … Exercise due care over the education provided by village schools, and reinforce this by teaching them the duties proper to sons and younger brothers, and those whose heads have turned hoary will not be carrying loads on the roads. When those who are seventy wear silk and eat meat and the masses are neighter cold nor hungry, it is impossible for their prince not to be a true King.”

-- the quintessential debate about how much government! But really, dude, just take your ax into the forests on the hills only in the proper seasons. You want your dad to wear silk when he’s seventy, don’t you?

New Years Resolution: The Scripture Project

This New Years, 2012, as every New Years, I've come up with a few resolutions. Among them: read one excerpt per day from any scripture, any tradition.

What counts as scripture, you ask? Most things you would expect, and some you probably wouldn't. In other words, I am not going to define it. That's one of the joys (and sometimes one of the major obnoxious points) of being an anthropologist.

Also open to suggestions (leave a comment!)