Saturday, September 8, 2012

Why knowing about cultural marginalization is important for everyone



I use the following quote from Howard Glickman about the novelist Walter Mosley to introduce the civic engagement exercise in my Intercultural Communication class.


The novelist Walter Mosley, was wonderfully provocative as he reflected on what he calls 'the great equalizing effect of aging.' Mosley, whose mother was Jewish and whose father was black, put it this way:  'White people become black people when they can no longer care for themselves.' The older you get, he added, 'the more you move into the Third World – marginalized by the rest of society.'”

 Aging is the great equalizer and hopefully humanizer.