The inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States of America and commander in chief of the world's number one super power is making people rethink, and rework their stereotypes as well as their vocabulary.
It is amazing how the word mulatto has become a popular term to use, especially for those who are uncomfortable to accept that a person other than white is in power. All of a sudden a word that was demeaning in many cultures has become popular, again. The world seems to still have a need to classify people in terms of their complexion. I salute whites in both South Africa and the United States of America who were brave enough to vote their conscience irrespective of the color of the candidates.
The birth of a world order where the complexion of one's skin is no longer a preferential treatment passport is slowly shaping up and older stereotypes are stubborn in shipping out. People of color are still deemed to be inferior because they are deemed to be different; inferior and different to whom and to what? Is there a genetic standard or measuring rod?
I believe that studies that find that black and colored people have a greater predisposition to be infected by disease because of what it is that they find in our blood or our genes have to be revisited. I believe that we should have the picture of people-in-totality. We come to the runway of life with our baggage. This baggage is weighing us down. This baggage is obliterating who we really are and can be.
The baggage that white is superior and that it is often awkward to think of fairies as being black. Oh sure we can easily think of witches and wizards as being black. Does anyone have any idea of the impact of this baggage on the socialization of our children? When so much changes we cannot stay the same.
Michael Gaffleyis proficient in the art and science of paradigm shifts,and lifestyle negotiations. He worked with sexually, physically and emotionally abused children and youth, and with socially excluded families in high risk environments.He worked with the Mandela government to implement the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) in the post apartheid era. During this time he developed Organizabonding, a leadership and organizational capacity building, education, training and technical assistance model facilitating the comprehensive management of the human capital investment in human services organizations. Repositioning, reframing and relating with people to celebrate diversity in organizations is his forte. .
He is in the process of publishing his first book: Flatline To Change.
It is a descriptive and evaluative reflection of the conflicting images of childhood in the nuanced reality of apartheid in South Africa during the apartheid era.
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