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This article reads exactly like how I would expect it to, were it written by a white. > In candor, I’m approaching this topic with a fair amount of bias. Being

This article reads exactly like how I would expect it to, were it written by a white. > In candor, I’m approaching this topic with a fair amount of bias. Being an outsider early in my adulthood was the most positive experience I have ever had. At 25, I moved to a foreign country where I didn’t speak a word of the language, and knew not one soul save for a woman I hoped to marry, but who spoke little English. > That woman became my wife, and subsequently became an outsider in the United States. Translation: I subjugated someone of a culture historically regarded as inferior to my own to the supremacy of western culture. Since they are now my wife, this gives me moral clearance to extol the virtues of a disadvantaged upbringing without having actually suffered any of its hardship myself, and also paint myself with an aura of pseudo-accomplishment for having experienced a mere fraction of that lifestyle.

majormajor 5y ago
We seem to have read different articles. Is Spain not part of western culture? Not that the author seems to be speaking for his wife as having gotten advantages from this, or claiming she came from a disadvantaged background, but that he himself feels like he benefited from struggling through the initial language issues. (The adopted daughter came from outside Western culture, but he doesn't so much attribute her current thriving to being brought to the US as much as to going through three different in-US highschools and then going to college in Spain.) And there's a pretty straightforward plausible cause->effect there: if you're on equal economic and opportunity-having footing otherwise, initially coming in as an outsider starts you off ahead in terms of eventually being able to see things from multiple perspectives. I do think the article suffers from not acknowledging the active difficulties suffered by many forced outsiders in particular - vs his moving to another western-culture-country where there was a language barrier but not, say, a history of lynching people like him - but that's different from what you see him doing. I think he has a blind spot between the difference between his "outsider" experiences and a true "disadvantaged" experience, I don't think he's putting words in the mouth of the disadvantaged as so much as glossing over them and ignoring them. (I.e., he's a conservative pundit. :| )
exolymph 5y ago
What. Is there any indication she didn't marry him on purpose?
ornornor 5y ago
Oh come on, you make it sound like he abducted her and enslaved her. That’s reading a bit too much into the life of someone you don’t know with little to no context available.
mejutoco 5y ago
> of a culture historically regarded as inferior to my own to the supremacy of western culture I see your point in general (a bit harsh IMO) except this sentence. As an Spaniard, I would never think of the idea of Spain as not western or perceived as inferior to the US. I needed to read it twice to understand what was being said in your comment. This reminds me of an interview in the US Olympics where the interviewer (US) kept asking the athlete (South African I think) about being African-American. She was very confused. It also reminds me of the time a colleague (from the US) argued that I am not white (I am Spanish), since in their mind I was a latino I guess? With all these anecdotes I mean to politely say that while there are similarities in many ways, you cannot simply extrapolate the US perceptions on race to the whole world.

majormajor 5y ago

We seem to have read different articles. Is Spain not part of western culture? Not that the author seems to be speaking for his wife as having gotten advantages from this, or claiming she came from a disadvantaged background, but that he himself feels like he benefited from struggling through the initial language issues. (The adopted daughter came from outside Western culture, but he doesn't so much attribute her current thriving to being brought to the US as much as to going through three different in-US highschools and then going to college in Spain.) And there's a pretty straightforward plausible cause->effect there: if you're on equal economic and opportunity-having footing otherwise, initially coming in as an outsider starts you off ahead in terms of eventually being able to see things from multiple perspectives. I do think the article suffers from not acknowledging the active difficulties suffered by many forced outsiders in particular - vs his moving to another western-culture-country where there was a language barrier but not, say, a history of lynching people like him - but that's different from what you see him doing. I think he has a blind spot between the difference between his "outsider" experiences and a true "disadvantaged" experience, I don't think he's putting words in the mouth of the disadvantaged as so much as glossing over them and ignoring them. (I.e., he's a conservative pundit. :| )

exolymph 5y ago

What. Is there any indication she didn't marry him on purpose?

ornornor 5y ago

Oh come on, you make it sound like he abducted her and enslaved her. That’s reading a bit too much into the life of someone you don’t know with little to no context available.

mejutoco 5y ago

> of a culture historically regarded as inferior to my own to the supremacy of western culture I see your point in general (a bit harsh IMO) except this sentence. As an Spaniard, I would never think of the idea of Spain as not western or perceived as inferior to the US. I needed to read it twice to understand what was being said in your comment. This reminds me of an interview in the US Olympics where the interviewer (US) kept asking the athlete (South African I think) about being African-American. She was very confused. It also reminds me of the time a colleague (from the US) argued that I am not white (I am Spanish), since in their mind I was a latino I guess? With all these anecdotes I mean to politely say that while there are similarities in many ways, you cannot simply extrapolate the US perceptions on race to the whole world.