Normalizing Differences
As I parent of a gender non-conforming child. I have spent the last eight years considering “difference” and how it is viewed in our North American culture. This is one of those issues that is as big a life, simultaneously as subtle and persuasive as it can get. Sometimes the obvious fractures in the culture get less attention, because no one knows what to do with them. It feels too overwhelming to take them on, so it is better to stay in a state of denial. Intellectual, Religious, Spiritual, and Artistic communities shed some light on the subject. If we try to address these topics in what would be, the real general public of America, we usually stall out.
We do not really have the tools or the training to create and foster an inclusive social model. If we try to actualize this on a big scale it is blocked by the existing frame-work of a “for-profit” society. And we do not have the fortitude, creativity, resources and persistence to navigate the impasses that present themselves while this kind of work matures and establishes itself. There are some small scale models that are emerging within this frame work but they are still in the grass roots stages, getting mostly overlooked.
We are immersed in a culture of separatism. This moldy model always highlights the differences in the population. Focus, on the one’s that have more then us. We covet what they have and how they live, and fantasize about how great and easy their lives are. Focus, on the people that have less then us, the different ones. Either we feel sympathy for them, want to save them or we are just glad that we personally do not have it so bad. How would we actualize and activate an equilibrium among us?
How do we normalize differences in this culture and make space for people from the fringe to integrate within the body of the population? How do we stop marginalizing and outcasting people who break from the pack mentality?
It is time to normalize differences. Root out the fear that hinders us from viewing difference as wrong or something to fear. All people are essentially the same, made up of the same raw materials. We are all energetically connected; all part of one whole, living on the same Planet. It is time for us to move towards a cooperative model and away from the model of “us and them”.
Questions for the reader to consider.
How does this binary model effect your life?
Are there any small things that you can do to spark change?
What models of social inclusion interest you?
What really matters to you?
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