Separate but equal is impossible in all things? I am writing two papers that deal with the subject of slavery and have been consumed with thoughts of the "other" creation that is necessary for slavery and the consequences of such othering. I haven't thought in depth on this one thought, though it may be helpful to do so for my Rhetoric paper in which I am arguing a genocide of African Americans did in fact occur in the southern United States. It is a very interesting argument since the man who created the word genocide denies what I will be arguing for. But that isn't the point. I was thinking the other day about the theory that humans have to categorize everything into one of two boxes, order and chaos, which is kinda like good and bad. Anyways, my though process is that if a group of humans name another group as different from them, creating an other, they have to place either themselves or the other group in the ordered and good box which leaves the left over group to be placed in the chaos and bad group. So I'm thinking if every time a distinction is made between anything, if it has to be but in one of the two boxes in our minds, than nothing that is different can be accepted in human psyche as being equal. Surely this can't be true though... I don't want it to be... I mean though this idea has been proven through the unequal segregated school systems in the U.S. It is also proved through the many genocides that display when one group is identified as different and othered that dehumanization occurs. But I also recognise that no one human is the same as another, that everyone is different, and I like that. It makes life interesting. I don't have a conclusion....
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