Hmm
As part of my school curriculum this semester I am a part-time intern at a company that teaches thinking skills to young people through the use of board games. As part of my internly duties I went to a church yesterday to help out in a marketing event, and I was mildly surprised that at 730am a mass was already in full swing and the followers already well-advanced in their communion with God. I think it would be pretty cool if there were masses at 3am. I can imagine a sparsely populated, air-conditioned hall filled with soft, peaceful hymns to be quite the sanctuary to be in to digest one's food after supper.
Nothing much else. We roped in people to either play the games (it was a carnival), buy the games, or sign up for our programmes. A young child nearly beat me in Blokus, and one of the things that pleasure me greatly on this job is to see the development of shrewd, strategic thinking on people so young.
One of the things that saddens me, however, is to see discrimination happening among people so young. On one occasion with Primary 4 kids, an Indian student had tears in his eyes because the Chinese in his group kept attacking him in the game, for no tactical reason at all. So I tried to comfort him and I told the others off. What happened after, though, was good: the Chinese eventually bent the rules of the game to help the victim - a certain card that helps a player has only limited effect but they decided to expand that effect even though that isn't allowed in the game.
Discrimination doesn't just occur along racial lines. Walking around facilitating the games, I see on occasion students of any age and of any gender persistently persecuting someone of their own race whom they don't like, even when doing so doesn't make any sense in the game. I think they do so people they don't like the looks of the person - ugly, geeky and fat people face the brunt of this. I think some part of it goes to their lack of grasp on the game: if you don't know how to enhance your position in the game then just spend moves sabotaging the person you dislike. Some part of it also goes to the design of the game: some of the games have the identities or resources of players hidden, so given a lack of knowledge you just have to randomly target someone first. But underneath all that is I think the drive to always congregrate in groups and adopt a hostile-first approach to outsiders - tribalistic behavior, we might say. We can only hope that as people advance in age they become less parochial.
On another note: Xenophobia in general is unjustified; but sometimes the issues xenophobics raise are valid issues. More precisely: the cause of xenophobia is unjustified. But the consequent issues that some xenophobics raise (that is, an effect of xenophobism) might be valid concerns. It is the effect of xenophobism that is the cause of more moderate positions. Take overcrowding as an example. Xenophobics may complain of overcrowding because they hate foreigners (usually for unjustifiable reasons). But overcrowding is the cause of why some other people may dislike foreigners. Because of this overlap, we might find that more moderate positions tend to get mislabelled as xenophobism.
Nothing much else. We roped in people to either play the games (it was a carnival), buy the games, or sign up for our programmes. A young child nearly beat me in Blokus, and one of the things that pleasure me greatly on this job is to see the development of shrewd, strategic thinking on people so young.
One of the things that saddens me, however, is to see discrimination happening among people so young. On one occasion with Primary 4 kids, an Indian student had tears in his eyes because the Chinese in his group kept attacking him in the game, for no tactical reason at all. So I tried to comfort him and I told the others off. What happened after, though, was good: the Chinese eventually bent the rules of the game to help the victim - a certain card that helps a player has only limited effect but they decided to expand that effect even though that isn't allowed in the game.
Discrimination doesn't just occur along racial lines. Walking around facilitating the games, I see on occasion students of any age and of any gender persistently persecuting someone of their own race whom they don't like, even when doing so doesn't make any sense in the game. I think they do so people they don't like the looks of the person - ugly, geeky and fat people face the brunt of this. I think some part of it goes to their lack of grasp on the game: if you don't know how to enhance your position in the game then just spend moves sabotaging the person you dislike. Some part of it also goes to the design of the game: some of the games have the identities or resources of players hidden, so given a lack of knowledge you just have to randomly target someone first. But underneath all that is I think the drive to always congregrate in groups and adopt a hostile-first approach to outsiders - tribalistic behavior, we might say. We can only hope that as people advance in age they become less parochial.
On another note: Xenophobia in general is unjustified; but sometimes the issues xenophobics raise are valid issues. More precisely: the cause of xenophobia is unjustified. But the consequent issues that some xenophobics raise (that is, an effect of xenophobism) might be valid concerns. It is the effect of xenophobism that is the cause of more moderate positions. Take overcrowding as an example. Xenophobics may complain of overcrowding because they hate foreigners (usually for unjustifiable reasons). But overcrowding is the cause of why some other people may dislike foreigners. Because of this overlap, we might find that more moderate positions tend to get mislabelled as xenophobism.
3 Comments:
Hm...sometimes there are just bullies around. As for xenophobia, I think the main thing here is that foreigners are still people. The key thing to me is that, to hate or dislike people for something which they did not personally cause, or which they caused unknowingly, is by itself mean. If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't want to be discriminated against (I'm adopting the Golden Mean argument).
Aquila
Oops, I mean Golden Rule.
Aquila
Of course. The right thing for these people to do is to lay the blame on the Government. Being hostile to the foreigners already here won't help the matter at hand, which is overcrowding.
Xenophobia is having a deep distrust or dislike of foreigners because they are foreigners. When some people say they hate foreigners, they aren't necessarily being xenophobic. This is because they may dislike foreigners for making their home such a crowdy place. So they shouldn't be labelled as xenophobes. That's the main point. In clarifying their position I am not necessarily endorsing them.
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