Comments on: On Pinky and Rubicon

By: Grego

Grego — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:50:56 +0000

The original TV series “Star Trek” (1966-69), if you peel away all the campy silly stuff, should be commended in that it touched on topics otherwise avoided like the bubonic plaque by all the other shows of its time and those even decades later. As you can imagine, in the late 60′s, race relations was one such a topic. In one episode, two alien characters – each, literally, half black and half white [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_That_Be_Your_Last_Battlefield], were at each other’s throats throughout the hour long episode. Their mutual hatred was so consuming that it destroyed not only themselves but every soul on their planet. Only near the end did the episode make clear what most people watching the show missed (and thus the purpose of that episode). The aliens, with their faces half white and black, were mirror images of each other (i.e., their colors were on opposite side of their faces).

So my point is whatever color a zebra is … it’s still a zebra and just as tasty to the lion.

By: Marg

Marg — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:20:24 +0000

interesting posts. it never occurred to me until I read this…is a zebra white with black stripes or black with white stripes

By: Grego

Grego — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:15:23 +0000

All very thoughtful and insightful comments, thank you.

I’m inclined to believe our brains are pre-wired to pick out differences in others. It’s instinctive, something we can’t help. However, how we treat those perceived “differences” is a learned behavior and, as history proves, that behavior is most often appalling.

Looking at a herd of zebras, a lion can’t tell one zebra from another no more than we can. The lion does not even see white animal with black stripes or a black animal with white stripes. But the lion is pre-wired to look for differences – the slower, the weaker, or that one zebra day dreaming away from the rest of the herd, i.e., the one that “appears different” from the others around them.

This ability is essential to its survival, its meal ticket. I suspect so was the same for our common ancestors. Like the lion, our brains are pre-wired to perceive differences. What ever our color, we had to eat.

As for me, a blind person knowing of my heritage would say I am non-white, while an uninformed sighted person would say I am white. What color am I? Maybe I’m a zebra.

By: vanessaleighsblog

vanessaleighsblog — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:03:43 +0000

How true! I am so with you on this! And, oh how we might change this complex world for the better!!!

By: tumel

tumel — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:32:15 +0000

I would say, We are what we see

if I see color, than I am color
if I see love, than I am love
if I see hate, than I am hate

how everyone preceives these things we see and hear are different, so we might question them, how do we see love, how do we see color, how do we see hate.

but what if we were without sight and without sound

sometimes I stand with my eyes closed and block my ears to experience this

if we were this way, then I would say

We are what we feel

so I wonder of this, because I have never asked one who is without both sight and sound from birth, how do you feel.

By: Sorrow

Sorrow — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:55:33 +0000

I don’t know what to say to this
I have been color blind
but I do know that the ability to see
someone for their surface
and not their depth
is a learned trait.
passed down
in the way one hears
and speaks
at home.

By: Mel

Mel — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:27:14 +0000

I think we are seen how we present ourselves to be seen, whether consciously or unconsciously. It’s human nature to want to label everything – to put things in neat little boxes. It’s how we make sense of the world. That’s why we so fear things that don’t fit neatly in those boxes: we can’t understand what we can’t label, and anything we can’t understand is surely evil and wrong.

Ultimately, I think CS Lewis said it best: “We are what we believe we are”.

By: Sue Ann Edwards

Sue Ann Edwards — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:06:21 +0000

Light is the combined total of all colors, seen and unseen.

The majority of the time, I’m ruddy beige.

But when I get cold I turn blue.

And when I get sick I turn green.

One time I stayed out in the sun a long time and turned red.

And one time an instant tan creme turned me orange.

As you can most likely surmise, I’m a colored person.