Important for activists: Focus on the Rights Denied, not on the Affected Class

Here's what I was trying to say
about the police racial profiling thing on the FnB list:

Consider that by focusing on the affected class
(racial minorities, gays, women, Muslims, etc.)
you may be doing the cause a disservice in many ways.

Among those not in that class,
the best you can hope for is solidarity.
(which in my experience is often hard to rally).

At worst, you can create alienation in those not in the class who suffer the same abuses,
and a greater sense of separation among those whom already suffer from delusions of class
and greater class-based hatred.

Remember, all class is delusion.
Class does not really exist.

Here is a real shocker for organizers around issues of race:
From a viewpoint of genetics:
Race does not exist!
See: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/human-genome-project-announces-race-does-not-exist

Race is not a fact, but an artifact of how
humans perceive, name, categorize, evaluate, and store information.

Men/Woman, Whites/Blacks, Gays/Straights....
We are all One: The Human Race.

Buddhist and Yoga practice
asks us to cultivate a vision
that each of us are really essentially the same.

Instead of focusing on the affected class,
I would suggest we instead focus on the rights denied.

There is a side benefit:
a much broader support base!!
because almost certainly
there are more affected people
than those in the class you first defined as having the problem.

Advice from an older activist....

Peace,
BH



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