Re: CHAT: Visible planets (was: Corpses)

At 10:57 AM 11/11/03 +0100, you wrote:
>Quoting Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>:
> > A side effect of this [going to a Antiochian Church) is that I don't think
>of Arabs as all being
> > Muslims, because the overwhelming majority of the Arabs that I personally
> > know are Christians.
>
>You're just too rational for me. Most Arabs I know personally are Christian,
>which certainly does not stop me from tending to think of Arabs as all Muslim.
I'm curious how it happens that most of the Arabs you know are
Christian.  I would think that this would be an unusual situation, given
that most Arabs actually are Muslim.

>I guess the key is that ethnicity, or indeed social group membership in
>general, is something that happens to strangers; my friends are individuals.
I perceive ethnicity and social group membership even in friends.  This may
be at least partially a product of perceiving myself as belonging to a
minority group (only about 1% of the American population is Orthodox
Christian.)  Our neighbors through the back yard, whose children my chidren
frequently play with, are Mormon.  They are absolutely lovely people (far
nicer than my own family is, in fact),  and I have no trouble being friends
with them, but I am always aware of the profound gulf that separates us
religiously.  (They're willing to talk about Mormon theology with us when
we're interested, which is a nice opportunity to try to understand what
they believe.)  Apart from the religious gap with our neighbors, there is
also a slight social gap, or non-alignment, or something.  I am also aware
of who does belong to the same group as I do, despite outward appearances,
such as my friend who is half-Guatemalan/half-American.  She looks
Guatemalan, but I know her well enough to know that she is American by
culture, as is my husband, who is half-Mexican/half-American, but entirely
Anglo culturally.  (Although my husband doesn't look particularly
Hispanic.  My half-Guatemalan friend was commenting a couple of months ago
that both her children and mine were one-quarter Hispanic, and pointed out
how different they looked - you really can't tell that my children are
partly Hispanic, but three of her four children look strongly Hispanic.)

My friends are indeed individuals, but that doesn't stop me from
categorizing them as well, when appropriate.

Isidora

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