The blur is real.
When I was young, I was sent every holiday, in one of the toughest neighbourhood in Paris where most children of immigrants can be found, to experience first hand what it means to be a product of your environment. I was bullied not because of the colour I shared with them but what I represented in their mind - the product of a middle-class family.
Yes, I was born neither white or black. I identify as mixed race. I was privileged to be raised in a household where your creativity and ingenuity was more prized than any other type of achievement (i.e. education, getting married or making money).
The experience made me appreciate even more what was given to me. The experience also forced me to be very selective in what I was allowed to say depending on the people I was with. Social oppression in the age of free speech is just too real when you are young and uneducated.
As for now, I am more educated and aware that free speech is one of the foundations of our enlightened worlds. I speak my mind more freely with all the communities I encounter. I try my best to remain an individual and yet find a way to universally share with others some type of consensus.
I recognise the limitations of free speech particularly in the age of identity politics.
Groups that share features of the same identity use sometimes Free Speech as a weapon to undermine who their opponent is by insulting them, being possibly violent in their words and actions. Instead of engaging further into an intellectual conversation about their shared and diverse attitudes and beliefs, so they can a consensus on what is universally best for each individual on this planet.
I encounter less and less such communities. When I do, it feels like being in the jungle of suburbians Paris with all the young bullying and fighting. It feels like primary school and high school with all of us left out by our parents in a prison with other crazy individuals.
The only way, I found, to deal with such community is to never confront them as a group but find in the edges the wise leaders to speak to directly. Eventually, their culture may change and they will find as a group a way to redefine who they are and find a way to communicate that will benefit humanity as a whole.
What do you think? Let me know.
When I was young, I was sent every holiday, in one of the toughest neighbourhood in Paris where most children of immigrants can be found, to experience first hand what it means to be a product of your environment. I was bullied not because of the colour I shared with them but what I represented in their mind - the product of a middle-class family.
Yes, I was born neither white or black. I identify as mixed race. I was privileged to be raised in a household where your creativity and ingenuity was more prized than any other type of achievement (i.e. education, getting married or making money).
The experience made me appreciate even more what was given to me. The experience also forced me to be very selective in what I was allowed to say depending on the people I was with. Social oppression in the age of free speech is just too real when you are young and uneducated.
As for now, I am more educated and aware that free speech is one of the foundations of our enlightened worlds. I speak my mind more freely with all the communities I encounter. I try my best to remain an individual and yet find a way to universally share with others some type of consensus.
I recognise the limitations of free speech particularly in the age of identity politics.
Groups that share features of the same identity use sometimes Free Speech as a weapon to undermine who their opponent is by insulting them, being possibly violent in their words and actions. Instead of engaging further into an intellectual conversation about their shared and diverse attitudes and beliefs, so they can a consensus on what is universally best for each individual on this planet.
I encounter less and less such communities. When I do, it feels like being in the jungle of suburbians Paris with all the young bullying and fighting. It feels like primary school and high school with all of us left out by our parents in a prison with other crazy individuals.
The only way, I found, to deal with such community is to never confront them as a group but find in the edges the wise leaders to speak to directly. Eventually, their culture may change and they will find as a group a way to redefine who they are and find a way to communicate that will benefit humanity as a whole.
What do you think? Let me know.