Working Together Is The Solution
“The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will occur not because of technology, but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human.” - Clement Mok
Dear Jennifer: Why do we think we’re the center of the universe where all other countries revolve around us? Why do people think they have the right to kill those they disagree with? - Julie
Dear Julie: At first, maybe small bands of Homo sapiens thought there was no one else like them, they had to stick together. Maybe a new baby is so dependent that survival means centering everything on your own needs. Maybe we felt so much safer with the known, people who looked like us, that we felt threatened by differences. Maybe forging your own identity is just too hard if you can easily stay with the group. Maybe power is seductive and superiority justifies controlling others. When these impulses became fixed in religions, histories, flags and competitions, people feel them to be truth, “We are right, God is on our side.” The truth is there are no “chosen people.” We are all in this together. God is in the connections between all life, not the separations. - Jennifer
Dear Jennifer: I am perplexed how a supposedly intelligent individual could come to the conclusion that affirmative action still is required in this country. It is obvious that you haven’t left your liberal shell to see what is happening in the real world.
It is my understanding that we live in a country that is not to discriminate against gender or race. You seem to forget that or refuse to understand the word discriminate. I’ve seen many hiring procedures require minority quotas rather than the most qualified as the criteria for employment.
Once again it appears you liberals just can’t accept change after 40 years. Maybe you could start your own country on some remote island. - Henry
Dear Henry: It would be a very crowded island since there are far more liberals in this country than conservatives. In the beginning the conservatives were monarchists defending King George III. Since then conservatives have defended extermination of Native Americans, slavery, debtors prisons, denying women access to education or the vote, isolationism, McCarthyism, trade barriers, creationism, sterilization of undesirables and defectives, book burning, assaults on homosexuals, limiting private property rights for women, public hangings, corporal punishment for children, segregation, domestic violence, rape, pollution, the use of nuclear weapons, governmental corruption, environmental degradation, special rights for wealthy farmers, cattlemen and tax breaks for the rich. Liberals have defended free sex, long hair, drugs, anti-war sentiments, abortion, welfare, snail darters and rock ‘n’ roll. I’m sure I’ve left out a lot. The point of this is that both liberals and conservatives have been wrong over the decades. Many liberals who believed too much in the freedom of individuals are now willing to opt for a compromise. That is the nature of democracy. Liberals offer too much and are tempered by conservatives. Conservatives offer too little and are stretched by liberals. History has validated far more liberal agendas than conservative ones.
Far from the “shell” you assume, I’ve spent the last 10 years speaking to most of the Fortune 500 companies about change and leadership. One thing is obvious in all those rooms of thousands of managers: Many still deeply believe that they are in that room only because they are the most qualified. Few believe it has anything to do with race, gender, ethnicity, privilege or connections.
Let’s wait a generation and see who is in those same rooms and why. When medical schools stopped discriminating against women, the average class shifted from 7 percent female to 47 percent female in a decade. The medical schools didn’t change their admissions criteria, they just dropped the traditional quota system that had restricted the number of women medical students to no more than 7 percent of the class.
I don’t mind if you live on my island because I believe I can learn from your point of view. You need me on your island so you won’t be bored to death surrounded by “supposedly intelligent” people who think they are right all the time. - Jennifer
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jennifer James The Spokesman-Review