Discrimination doesn’t require conflict or indeed much besides the flimsiest designation of otherness. As American psychologist Henri Taifel demonstrated in a study, when a batch of adolescent boys were simply told that certain others had scored the same score as them at a computer task, they began to band together and discriminate against those who hadn’t achieved the same score.A very effective way to disempower someone is to create an environment in which they feel excluded. Rather than disempower each other by exclusion, why not include others by appreciating our differences? Our differences are neither bad nor good, but simply allow us to experience each other's uniqueness. Isn't that worth striving for?
Difference of any sort that gets emphasized is enough to create a ‘minimal group’ and, consequently, an outgroup. All it takes is any kind of a wall, no matter how flimsy.
Lynn McTaggart, from her blog article "All in this together"
Random thoughts about the Universe and our place in it
Dare to step out of the
limitations of belief systems
that restrict who you truly are
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