A Way of Seeing (Weekend Anthropology)

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

I’ve thought for years, that Cultural Anthro needs to be a required course in the high school curriculum. Or at least included in a Rotation on Social/Cultural Issues of some sort.

It is the kind of Education we all really need more of. In some arena’s, “multicultural” stuff is “in”, it’s trendy, we see that with the Ethnicity Of The Month celebrations (which are pretty superficial). But something with a little more depth, a course plan that is well designed and well taught… well I can dream, can’t I? I think it would go a long way towards forwarding the R/Evolution we all feel is coming.

Ignorance is the enemy.

NOTE: No folktales tonight (as I’ve been doing in my previous essays, here’s the first one). I got tired of those … theye’re ALL about Greed! lol … I may return to them if/when I find any good ones or I get inspired.

Here’s an Opening Prayer.

Knowledge is more than just facts and information. Not that facts aren’t worthwhile. Heh. The more personal and genuine and kind any exchange is, the more learning value it carries. It’s the best way I know to acquiring a more multi-dimensional way of seeing, and being.

I have been very fortunate to have had many wonderful Teachers in my life along those lines.  I am as white as Casper the Ghost so growing up in Miami, FLA in the 60’s was rather unique. My agemates and classmates, who had come from Cuba as refugees, had arrived here at age 4 (approx 1960). There was a lot of the typical resentment and tension with them and the long time local whites, (yankees). And then of course, Miami had a large year round pop of New York (and NJ) Jews. For the longest time, as a kid, I thought a New York accent was one and the same as a Jewish accent. So there I was, in Catholic schools, yet another little sub group of folks. Mostly in my activist activities, I was befriended (and enlightened) by some truly wonderful friends. So then on to college and in the study of APY, some really interesting stuff.

These are the kinds of things I want to explore in my Saturday Essays here.

The thing is… once you acquire, and absorb, and internalize, that kind of knowledge, both wonky/academic and experiential, you can’t un-see it or un-know it… it will forever color your world view from then on. Kinda like going from Black ‘n’ White to Color, or near-sighted to almost perfect eyesight… The realization that “Teh Other” is essentially human, and like “me”. One Heart.

One of the most awesome courses in college that I took was a Special Topics Course, Gender in Cross Cultural Perspective. Man I wish I still had the Reading List from that class! (Here’s a 1999 book on Gender Diversity I might look for. The course was co-taught by two women profs: Toni Brown was a Physical A’ist and Maxine Margolis, Cultural. Really mindbending. Consider also, this was about 1976. It will take some time and research but I do hope to write an essay on that soon.

FDL posted this article just a couple weeks ago, about the new documentary, Two Spirits… anyone seen it yet?

TWO SPIRITS interweaves the tragic story of a mother’s loss of her son with a revealing look at the largely unknown history of a time when the world wasn’t simply divided into male and female and many Native American cultures held places of honor for people of integrated genders.

Fred Martinez was nádleehí, a male-bodied person with a feminine essence, a special gift according to his ancient Navajo culture. He was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered at sixteen by a young man who bragged to friends that he had bug-smashed a fag. TWO SPIRITS explores the life and death of a boy who was also a girl and the essentially spiritual nature of gender and sexuality. The film makes the case that in the twenty-first century we need to return to traditional values.

Trailer:

Wow.