Re: Racial diversity here and

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I certainly never tried to say that race has no effect on people's lives.
Indeed, it has too great an effect. My point was that, to assume because you
know someone's race means that you know anything about them other that that is
misleading and unfair. Irrespective of class, I might add, which can often be
more relevant. Yet people still act as if those concepts are interchangeable. 
Will a poor black kid be able to relate to Holden Caulfield? Probably not.
Holden lives in an alien world to him or her. Does that mean he/she won't like
the book? Maybe, maybe not. To me, those are not the fundamental questions
that are posed by this thread. The fundamental question is if a kid is black
and poor can we assume that he won't like Catcher and JDS? Clearly, the answer
is no. And while it may make it easier for people to look at the world in
generalities so that they may process the large amounts of information we are
presented with, I think that when you apply that principle to people, you miss
so much and you do them a great disservice and a wrong. Exceptions do not
prove the rule. Exceptions mean that you need to re-examine the rule and
maybe, just maybe throw out the rules altogether and just take each person as
they come instead of taking one look at them and imposing all of your
stereotypes onto them before even saying hello. 

Peggy 

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