Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Tuesday's Mental Musings

Walking the streets of New York I have often had the pleasure of being called "yous people" as well as variations of other alienating descriptive titles by many who have forgotten a time in their history when their own people and perhaps themselves were considered and labeled in the same way. The funny thing is that "my people" have been here in America long before any of "those" people's were. In fact some of "my people" greeted "those peoples" who called most "you people" to begin with, but I digress.

When I was younger I spent a lot of time staring into reflective surfaces and the faces of my relatives and loved ones trying to understand what made others believe we didn't belong and that they did. As much as I stared I never found a concrete answer other than the idea that most feel insecure about belonging and that insecurity creates a need in many to create a hiearchy that separates us from them, me from you, my people from your people.

Still this is America, the land of immigration and this is New York, one of the biggest receiving ports of that immigration, how could anyone be called "yous people" when we are all "us people"?

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