Friday, November 20, 2015

Links, 20th September, 2015

Steven Hsu links to some posts on Microaggression, Moral Cultures and the Culture of Victimhood: "Growing up, I could easily understand that there was a "generation gap" between people my age and our parents and teachers. But I could not imagine what the gap would be like between us and our own children and students. (Gee, I'm hip, and I'll always understand what it's like to be a kid or teenager...) Perhaps this is it."
A new historical data base on world human development
Dalai Lama on recent Paris attacks
Some reaction to IS in different countries Most Pakistanis say not sure
Compared to the problems of refugees these problems seem minor My white neighbours thought that I was breaking into my own apartment. Nineteen cops showed up. via J.K.Mohana Rao who describes his own experiences and I describe mine "We had similar experiences too in Melbourne. I bought a hose in a poor neighborhood in 1988. We were callked 'black dos' and somebody wrote 'black c...s' in front of our house. Once somebody threw stones on our house and in the night water started pouring in due to heavy rains. Luckily, a young neighbour who is familar with construction work, came and put a plastic sheet over the hole and repaired it next day. How did we cope? We temporarily taught children prejudice. We told them their grandfather was a postraduate and most neighbours came from riff-raff of England. I kept telling myself that dalits and brahmins fared worse in the area where i came from. Other Indians were in slightly better areas and claimed that they did not have similar experiences though some admitted in due course that they wetre heckled while waiting for buses. We moved to a middle class area after four years mainly because the schools were bad. It was much better though children were called abos (supposed to be an insult) in school sometimes. We went through various Indian functions, named some houses during functions fter Ashoka, harsha... but not Akbar. Now all are doing well with some children in big bank jobs etc. A gentleman told me that his daughter, a lawyer, is handling a two billion dollar case where a mining company is tryin to get out of the damage it has done which is still causing fires. Another tells me that his son is in some banking job and probably has the biggest salary among Indians in the southern hemisphere. we are all doing well and they tell me that Modi is transforming India."

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