Thinking Cross Culturally 2/8/12

First off, I love the fact that King rarely retaliated towards the people that criticized him. I think this says so much about his character and his ability to lead. The fact that he wanted to work on constructive things rather than argue with people that were not likely to change their views shows how he wanted things to change. It shows that he was dedicated and sincere and not only looking for a reaction. There are many sayings such as “actions are better than words” that describe what King was doing.

Furthermore, it is astonishing to think now that the racism and the segregation allowed back then happened. As a country we have come so far to and we still have a long ways to go. Will we look back again in 50 or 100 years and be astonished at what is going on today? It is likely that we will and it would be awesome if we could speed up the time it takes to make diversity a wide known issue. Before college I never knew there were still issues.

King says that freedom is never freely given by an oppressor. This is true. Awareness has to be raised about a situation and then it can be addressed. Some people have to be persuaded to change and others only need to be told that they are doing something wrong.  I also love his quote questioning why it is bad that he is an extremist. He asks if Jesus, Thomas Jefferson, Amos, Abraham, Paul and others were extremists.

In the second text it starts talking about how cultures differ in how infants sleep in the same room or different rooms depending on cultures. In that way I am not very like the culture that I was raised in but also I had special circumstances. My mom had passed away when my sisters and I were 3, 5 ,and 7. We were so terrified to sleep alone that my dad built and extended bed that went from wall to wall and for several months we slept in the same room. I digress, this difference in cultures is very interesting. I hate the word programming though, it makes mankind seem like we have no free will and computer like.