Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Quote of the Day

cornelius, you are completely right. all the more in that her words might have applied to an individual--in fact to herself, the lesser cousin whom the high-up fdr married--but it becomes almost demeaning when applied to groups, especially disadvantaged groups. like reagan telling welfare mamas that their poverty was their fault, etc. this is the american dream: if you are not a millionaire, it is your fault.
and on the basis of that ideology grows a neoliberal state with no social conscience.
ken

On 6/19/13 10:01 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:

RE - "Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" - Eleanor Roosevelt

She must have been speaking in and of another context – perhaps not even a civil rights context. Applying her quote to the context in which and of which we are talking – namely alleged racism over an artist's intentions as per his representation in what has erroneously been referred to as "the nigger cake" depicting the agony of what a female victim of various forms of clitoridectomy suffers  or what others suffer or scream on her behalf – is quite another matter.  Ayi Kwei Armah asks in one of his novels (either "Fragments" or "Why are we so blest" - he asks, What happens to the soul of a Ghanaian boy who grows up being called Mike/Michael?

The individual understanding and response to the import of that question may vary from individual to individual, but this much must be clear : if in all your miserable life, a missionary colonial education which in itself was not so spectacular  – since you were not a star pupil and you did not attend any of the best schools – if nevertheless such a missionary education has succeeded in misshaping your mind by instilling or implanting it in you that it is better to be called Michael or Abdul  - and indeed, that being Michael or Abdul is the essence of you identity - or that Kwame or Santigie is inferior nomenclature, then the question of your consent (and submitting to that system since childhood) – the question of your consent does not necessarily arise. If since childhood you have been told and have inculcated the idea that you are inferior – since your father was no engineer etc. no amount of later education is going to erase that self-perception with which you have been afflicted and you will always be seeking assurance/reassurance/ confirmation that it is not so. It's called an inferiority complex– the other side of the coin is known as a self/compensating superiority complex which some may arrive at after undergoing some kind of hypnosis to redeem them of the original affliction  - as a result of which they may want to assume that they are superior to everybody – even though they know ( in their hearts) that they are not the most or the greatest anything. Or maybe they don't know so?

We are to assume that in the myth about  Romulus and Remus who were brought up by wolves, they  must have thought of themselves as wolves. In a similar manner a lion cub that's brought up by a pack of asses may go on thinking that he is an ass, until perchance one fine day he looks into a pool of stagnant water and there beholds his own reflection.

http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/corneliushamelberg/

 

 

On Wednesday, June 19, 2013 8:56:43 AM UTC+2, Eugene wrote:

 

"Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" - Eleanor Roosevelt

Love & Best Wishes, always; positively: http://optimaledge.net/#/the-secret/4574222007

 

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