The More People Change, the More We're The Same

The Museum of Science in Boston currently has an exhibit about race, and the question that it explores, across the races, is "Are we so different?" When we were at the museum recently, I explained the idea behind it to Ian, but he was much more interested in the electricity generator down the hall - which a seven-year-old boy may tend to prefer - so we left Amy to explore that exhibit (which she really enjoyed), with Madeleine in tow, while Ian, Daniel and I went off to see things that spark and make very loud noises (which they really enjoyed). However, apparently the category sank in with him, even though we only looked at a small part of the exhibit. On the way home from church today, he quipped:

"That's the thing that's the same about black people and white people - it's that they're all different."

At the risk of mounting the soap-box, I had seldom heard a perspective before that so succinctly recognized each person's uniqueness. A prevailing mantra to address this question in society is to say that "We're all the same," but the reality is that no two people are remotely "the same," even within the narrowest demographic confines, such as "identical" twins. Ian's point brings to mind the old bumper sticker, "Women who want to be equal to men have no ambition." Of course, I did point out to Ian that our real "sameness" among people is that we're all created in God's Image. But part of the Divine spark seems to be God's refusal to use the same "patent" for more than any single individual. It's not that "the other" is different from "us"; it's that each one of us is "other," which is part of what makes the human family so interesting, and which exposes any exclusive racial "Us" as a myth.

Just to make sure, I asked Ian if he had heard that observation somewhere. But no - he thought of it on his own.

(May 1, 2011)