This week's blog post is about the quotes from the reading Privilege Power and Difference by Alan Johnson. Overall this reading is about differences that people have and how these differences can have an impact on people to have different experiences from each other and that having these differences can cause us to have different opinions. Within the first paragraph on the last page of Alan Johnson’s introduction, he says “What I don’t know from my own experience I have to supplement by studying the experience and research and writings of others….”This quote I found extremely important to emphasize because I think that although we can be discussing tough topics such as racism, class standings, preference in sexual partners, sexism, and privilege, everyone can bring their own experiences no matter what to the discussion. This allows for different point of views to be seen no matter what the discussion is on. This would be able to create a safe space for people to be able to relate to each other or see how people are experiencing different things on the topic of discussion. I think that this quote of Alan Johnson also expresses how when you do not know something that it is okay and that you can inform yourself on what you don’t know by being open to the idea of researching others thoughts and opinions.
Another quote that I found to be important in Alan Johnson's reading is when he says “For all our potential, you’d think we could manage to get along with one another”. After reading this quote I stopped reading and sat with that thought for a few minutes. I thought about how yes as humans we do have great potential and ability to do great things but what is stopping us from treating everyone with human decency? Personally, I think that differences in opinions is the cause of most reasons why people are not being treated with decency. This quote really makes you stop to think about how great some of the things that we can do as humans are and how due to different opinions and not being open to listening or learning is what can stop us from being able to treat people with decency.
The last quote that I am going to talk about tonight from Alan Johnson from this reading is “we are not prisoners to some natural order that pits us hopelessly and endlessly against one another”. This quote points out that there is nothing besides ourselves standing in the way of being able to come together and discuss and create change within these hard topic conversations. This quote points out that we do not need to be against each other if we just open ourselves into learning about other people's experiences and acknowledge our own experiences.
From this reading I have gathered that we are all different and that it is okay but if we could learn to open up to each other and learn from each other's experience and understand why things can be harder for others than ourselves, then maybe we could be kinder to each other. The image below is to represent how if we come together and accept each other and our different experiences we could create a more positive world. The Image below if from https://stockcake.com/i/unity-in-diversity_740331_822539
