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minorities
> are you left handed? you're a minority!
Being a lefty, I really enjoyed the following story I was told about a
conference on racial priveledge. A reporter was interviewing the keynote
speaker, and being rather skeptical about the whole idea of white priveledge,
and she said "are you right handed?" He affirmed that he was, and she said "Go
and open that door with your left hand". It happened to be one of those door
handles that rotates downward to open the door, so he had to twist his wrist
into an awkward position to open the latch, and then he had to push the door
across his body, a contortion made more uncomfortable because the wrist was
already twisted. It would never occur to a right-hander that there was
anything remotely problematic about the door. With the right hand, it's just:
reach across, push handle down, pull door open across your body. Perfectly
comfortable. That's what majority priveledge is all about. The "natural" way
things are work in ways that are comfortable for you, and in such a way that
you don't ever have to think about it. Those of us that are different have to
either train ourselves to fit the mold (I open doors right-handed, most of the
time), or be subjected to constant annoyance and discomfort. And lest someone
discount lefties as a minority, I could list *dozens* of everyday things that
are set up for the convenience of righties: subway turnstiles (the ticket goes
to the right, and often I forget and put it in the left, meaning I just let the
person to my left in for free and I get a locked steel bar in the crotch),
those lecture hall desks that pull out to the right of the chair... just to
name two examples. Of course, on race and sexual orientation issues, the
problems are more serious and run deeper, but they are just as real.
Back to work,
--
Don Smith Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/
"Am I gentrifying my inner neighborhood?" - Dar Williams
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