Putting Dr Seuss's vision into action: Together for Humanity (LINK)
March 18th 2008 00:34
I have yet to come across a more profound piece of anti-racist literature than Dr Seuss’s story The Sneeches. When those ridiculous creatures finally realize that it makes no difference whether you have a star on your belly or not, and ‘no kind of sneech is the best on the beach,’ I feel a huge hurrah coming on.
Despite my ambivalence about the romance of motherhood, marriage and most other hyped up ventures including ‘the spiritual journey’ apparently remedied by The Secret, I am, I guess, I suppose, if the truth must be wrestled from me, an idealist. I do not, for example, believe that people are inherently bad and selfish, even though my husband points out that most people act this way most of the time. I assume this is due to a misunderstanding they have with themselves, which can easily be remedied with a random act of kindness. I have of course been proved wrong on countless occasions, but I refuse to give up believing that most people, most of the time, though they may say racist, sexist, homophobic, stupid things, few of them truly mean to be ignorant and hurtful.
The human spirit is nothing if not infinitely recyclable. I once told a friend who thought she couldn’t give up smoking, ‘as soon as you find something you like more than smoking - like for example, breathing - you’ll give it up.’ And sure enough when the dentist informed her she had pre-cancerous lesions in her mouth – viola, the fags went out the window and she began to smell the roses.
It’s much the same when it comes to how we think. As soon as we find something that works better for us, we can give up crusty old beliefs like ‘all women screw men on divorce,’ or ‘all Blacks / Chinese / Jews/ Muslims… (take your pick) are inherently lazy / dishonest / dangerous / greedy / terrorists…’ which really just cause a cancer of a different kind.
With a new book to write for Allen & Unwin by September, I seldom have occasion to do the hair, the makeup and get out of my pyjamas. Yesterday, instead of wallowing all day long in front of my computer screen with no-one but the cat to dress up for, I put on a proper (clean) dress and even jewelry because I was one of several presenters of a workshop for the Fairfield Council on multiculturalism and diversity.
Most of the remarkable interesting people I get to meet are figments of my own imagination, so actually getting to spend a day with a rabbi, a Liberian Muslim with an extraordinary life story, a Christian youth worker and a vivacious professional story teller, was something of a rare treat.
Rabbi Zalman Kastel and Donna Jacobs Sife are the two people who run Together for Humanity, a small organization with a massive heart, and an even greater vision. Not quite Sylvester McMonkey McBean (who is only in it for the money) they travel from school to school, bringing games, stories and engaging methods all of which are designed to nudge us into questioning ourselves about the racial, religious and social differences that divide us.
Tackling the question of ‘who is an Australian?’ and ‘where does difference lie?’ we spent four hours with the good people of the Fairfield Council, sharing stories, listening to viewpoints very different from our own, and talking about the very thing we as human beings need to – but find so very hard to – tackle: the unconscious biases and prejudices that inform our daily interactions with others we perceive as ‘different’ from ourselves.
People told stories of Chinese painters who were ‘incompetent,’ who were only later discovered as medical doctors, desperate for work in Australia. Mohamed spoke of a defining moment in his life in Liberia when he chose to love his enemy and thus salvage their shared humanity. With respect for every person’s views as the fulcrum of all discussion, people slowly opened their hearts and added their stories in accents as diverse as Chilean, Thai, Indian, Polish, American, Canadian and Spanish. It reminded me of a quote I used to have pinned to my computer in my days as a women’s rights activist:
Large change doesn’t come from clever, quick fixes; from smart, tense people, but from long conversations and silences among people who know different things and need to learn different things.
Anne Herbert
I felt a huge sense of what is possible after yesterday, despite some of the views that were expressed that made me realize how far we still have to go on this road. But as Donna so eloquently put it, ‘This is the hardest, but most valuable work we need to do as human beings living in a diverse culture.’
Dr Suess just says it better than anyone I know:
‘And there I was! Caught in the Snide!
And in that dreadful place
Those spooky empty pants and I
Were standing face to face!
I yelled for help. I screamed. I shrieked.
I howled. I yowled. I cried,
‘Oh save me from these pale green pants
With nobody inside!’
But then a strange thing happened.
Why those pants began to cry!
Those pants began to tremble.
They were just as scared as I!
I never heard such whimpering
And I began to see
That I was just as strange to them
As they were strange to me.
I put my arm around their waist
And sat right down beside them.
I calmed them down.
Poor empty pants
With nobody inside them.
And now we meet quite often.
Those empty pants and I.
And we never shake or tremble.
We both smile
And we say
‘Hi!’
‘What was I Scared of?’
When I first arrived in Australia, I felt aggrieved at the notion that I had to share this country with an entire taxonomy of noxious spiders and jellyfish. But every now and then one encounters a handful of people who make one happy to share this planet at all, because, (despite all the cynics out there) they are working, one conversation at a time, to make this world a better place; to replace yowling and howling with a smile and a ‘Hi.’
Check out their website at www.togetherforhumanity.org.au
www.joannefedler.com
Despite my ambivalence about the romance of motherhood, marriage and most other hyped up ventures including ‘the spiritual journey’ apparently remedied by The Secret, I am, I guess, I suppose, if the truth must be wrestled from me, an idealist. I do not, for example, believe that people are inherently bad and selfish, even though my husband points out that most people act this way most of the time. I assume this is due to a misunderstanding they have with themselves, which can easily be remedied with a random act of kindness. I have of course been proved wrong on countless occasions, but I refuse to give up believing that most people, most of the time, though they may say racist, sexist, homophobic, stupid things, few of them truly mean to be ignorant and hurtful.
The human spirit is nothing if not infinitely recyclable. I once told a friend who thought she couldn’t give up smoking, ‘as soon as you find something you like more than smoking - like for example, breathing - you’ll give it up.’ And sure enough when the dentist informed her she had pre-cancerous lesions in her mouth – viola, the fags went out the window and she began to smell the roses.
It’s much the same when it comes to how we think. As soon as we find something that works better for us, we can give up crusty old beliefs like ‘all women screw men on divorce,’ or ‘all Blacks / Chinese / Jews/ Muslims… (take your pick) are inherently lazy / dishonest / dangerous / greedy / terrorists…’ which really just cause a cancer of a different kind.
With a new book to write for Allen & Unwin by September, I seldom have occasion to do the hair, the makeup and get out of my pyjamas. Yesterday, instead of wallowing all day long in front of my computer screen with no-one but the cat to dress up for, I put on a proper (clean) dress and even jewelry because I was one of several presenters of a workshop for the Fairfield Council on multiculturalism and diversity.
Most of the remarkable interesting people I get to meet are figments of my own imagination, so actually getting to spend a day with a rabbi, a Liberian Muslim with an extraordinary life story, a Christian youth worker and a vivacious professional story teller, was something of a rare treat.
Rabbi Zalman Kastel in action
Rabbi Zalman Kastel and Donna Jacobs Sife are the two people who run Together for Humanity, a small organization with a massive heart, and an even greater vision. Not quite Sylvester McMonkey McBean (who is only in it for the money) they travel from school to school, bringing games, stories and engaging methods all of which are designed to nudge us into questioning ourselves about the racial, religious and social differences that divide us.
Tackling the question of ‘who is an Australian?’ and ‘where does difference lie?’ we spent four hours with the good people of the Fairfield Council, sharing stories, listening to viewpoints very different from our own, and talking about the very thing we as human beings need to – but find so very hard to – tackle: the unconscious biases and prejudices that inform our daily interactions with others we perceive as ‘different’ from ourselves.
People told stories of Chinese painters who were ‘incompetent,’ who were only later discovered as medical doctors, desperate for work in Australia. Mohamed spoke of a defining moment in his life in Liberia when he chose to love his enemy and thus salvage their shared humanity. With respect for every person’s views as the fulcrum of all discussion, people slowly opened their hearts and added their stories in accents as diverse as Chilean, Thai, Indian, Polish, American, Canadian and Spanish. It reminded me of a quote I used to have pinned to my computer in my days as a women’s rights activist:
Large change doesn’t come from clever, quick fixes; from smart, tense people, but from long conversations and silences among people who know different things and need to learn different things.
Anne Herbert
I felt a huge sense of what is possible after yesterday, despite some of the views that were expressed that made me realize how far we still have to go on this road. But as Donna so eloquently put it, ‘This is the hardest, but most valuable work we need to do as human beings living in a diverse culture.’
Greg Thurling from Fairfield Council with the Together for Humanity presenters
Dr Suess just says it better than anyone I know:
‘And there I was! Caught in the Snide!
And in that dreadful place
Those spooky empty pants and I
Were standing face to face!
I yelled for help. I screamed. I shrieked.
I howled. I yowled. I cried,
‘Oh save me from these pale green pants
With nobody inside!’
But then a strange thing happened.
Why those pants began to cry!
Those pants began to tremble.
They were just as scared as I!
I never heard such whimpering
And I began to see
That I was just as strange to them
As they were strange to me.
I put my arm around their waist
And sat right down beside them.
I calmed them down.
Poor empty pants
With nobody inside them.
And now we meet quite often.
Those empty pants and I.
And we never shake or tremble.
We both smile
And we say
‘Hi!’
‘What was I Scared of?’
When I first arrived in Australia, I felt aggrieved at the notion that I had to share this country with an entire taxonomy of noxious spiders and jellyfish. But every now and then one encounters a handful of people who make one happy to share this planet at all, because, (despite all the cynics out there) they are working, one conversation at a time, to make this world a better place; to replace yowling and howling with a smile and a ‘Hi.’
Check out their website at www.togetherforhumanity.org.au
www.joannefedler.com
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We have similar discussions about what it means to be "Canadian".
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Some days we just need to be reminded that such people still exist. Thanks for an inspirational post.
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