Patti,
You are quite right here to note that the statement need not be taken genetically.
Let me cite the original quotation, your comment, and then I'll add a couple final
thoughts on this topic.
-Original Message-
From: Patti Goebel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
. . . they have always excelled all other peoples in endowments conferred by birth.
Persia
herself, moreover!
Another way to look at this is that the endowments conferred by birth are
not anything genetic, but rather the circumstances into which a child is
born, including natural resources, culture, knowledge base, spiritual base,
etc.
In 'Abdu'l-Baha's statement, it is important to note that he writes endowments
conferred by birth. That which is genetic is there at conception. At birth, one is
brought into a family, a community, a culture, a language, etc. all of which
determines those particular endowments conferred by birth to a person.
I remember a story a number of years back when a famous delicatessen was closing in
Brooklyn, NYC. Many patrons were coming by for their final orders of gefilte fish,
lox, knishes, etc. A reporter was covering the closing of a century's long
institution in the community. As one customer left with her order of knishes, the
reporter approached her and requested a brief interview about the deli. She agreed,
and the reporter asked her why she had come by for her ceremonial final order . . .
particularly noting that she was African-American. In New York, folks are pretty
direct with questions, so she understood the question and did not take offense. Her
response? . . . She looked at the reporter for _The Christian Science Monitor_ as if
he was a bit clueless, and then she replied, Don't you understand? This is New
York! Here we're all Jews! It's part of the dominant culture, part of all of us.
Of course, she was not saying that she was ethnically nor religiously Jewish, but that
part of her respective endowments conferred by birth included growing up within a
part of NYC that was predominantly Jewish and that it was part of her culture thereby
as a local resident.
This is very much the case in the northwestern part of New Mexico where the
predominant culture is Navajo. Everyone connected with that region is informed by the
dominant Navajo culture, and of course, everyone in New Mexico is part Hispanic since
the culture pervades the entire state (albeit differently in different regions). Many
Native American writers from New Mexico or who have spent many formative years there
include Navajo/Dine' concepts and words in their writing, even though their genetic
tribal backgrounds are not Navajo.
[Of course, there is an important and, sometimes, a very fine line between being part
of a culture versus problematic (and, at times, outright racist) appropriations. One
infamous example was the book published a number of years back by Asa Carter entitled
_The Education of Little Tree_ that purported to be the author's romanticized and
nostalgized growing years as a Cherokee boy. As it turns out, the author was not
Cherokee, and, in fact, had been an active member of the Ku Klux Klan throughout his
life. The book was an outright fabrication, but its romanticized Euroamerican views
of Native culture spoke strongly to Euroamericans who loved the book whose sales
propelled the tranformation of the book into a financially successful, yet racially
stereoptypic film.]
Native American appropriation is a very loaded and sensitive issue throughout Indian
country . . . and a very \\HOT// topic here in Illinois. Post-modernism
notwithstanding, essentialist racial appropriations endure, even though as Native
writer and filmmaker Sherman Alexie says, The endgame of essentialism was flying
airplanes into buildings.
Would that all people would take to heart Baha'u'llah's words that The well-being of
mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly
established.
We all need to start listening to each others' stories and making choices truly based
on conversive consultation. My state of Illinois is very divided because of the issue
of Native American mascots even at the highest levels of state government. Mark, as a
Sociologist, you must be very aware of our situation here since I understand that the
University of Illinois is one of the primary current examples of institutional racism
in contemporary Sociology texts. The difference between being part of a culture
versus an outside appropriation is hard for many to understand.
Anyway, greetings to all online here. Even when I do not post for awhile, I am an
active reader of your posts and have learned so much from the friends on this list.
Thank you, Mark and Susan, for this listserve.
Susan
Dr. Susan Berry Brill de Ramirez, Professor of English
Department of English, Bradley University, Peoria, IL 61625 U.S.A.
(309) 677-3888, fax: (309)
