Most importantly, I have gained the ability to see humanity as a whole. It is easy to lose the forest for the trees when thinking about human beings. It is tempting to conclude that people are all so different for so many various reasons that it is not worth trying to understand other ways of life. Some just think that as long as you don’t put down people that are different from you, then you are being as liberal, open-minded, etc as possible. This class has shown me that it possible to adopt an even more positive outlook. We are united by our differences, they are one of the few things we all have in common. To me, this perspective is more valuable because it opens doors. With a sense of togetherness, we can establish and work toward common goals.
I have come to the conclusion that communication is at the heart of this matter. The unit on race and ethnicity helped me to reach the realization that racism is an attempt to communicate with someone, without actually communicating with that person. Racism is an attempt at communication because it is a species of description about a given person. However to truly be able to describe a person, one must actually communicate with that person. Granted, real communication is still subject to the veil of perception: we all bring our own biases, experiences, values etc with us, but that does not mean that we should attempt to describe people by their physical traits alone. We are all born with whatever physical traits we have, we have no choice in the matter, the only traits that are telling of a person are results of conscious choices a person has made. Therefore a person’s skin color tells us nothing, while a tattoo on that skin can tell us something, and even further it is far more valuable to communicate with that person about her tattoo than to just assume its meaning. This idea applies to all abusive human relations, not just racism. Communication is a natural result of curiosity, and an emphasis on these two things can only yield positive results for everyone involved.
Stop Making Sense 
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