I can't have my cake an eat it too? But what if I make my own cake? Who established this metaphor, because I see too many people eating other people's cakes. Wow, I actually sound like a misinformed conservative. It seems to be that society is made of either cake eaters or cake makers, but likely most of us are both. In the dualistic world I think many people see the poor minorities as the cake eaters.
If they are what kinda cake are they being fed? A cake that has no nutritional value. A cake that leads to the highest incarceration rates (3), highest drop out rates (1), and highest violent death rates (2). Or maybe us minorities just don't know how to eat cake. There is always the belief that people of color are just not motivated enough. The assumed productive cake makers are being taught to have pride in their cake. Politically they are being taught to believe that minorities, also believed to be poor, lazy, and ignorant, are sitting around with elaborate ways of mooching off their cake. This is foolish to believe and complex enough to not be able to disprove.
Why can't we have a metaphor that describes our process as baking a cake with enough ingredients from diverse sources to share it?
...to be continued
1 - http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=16
2 - http://www.publicagenda.com/charts/violence-related-firearm-death-rates-race
3 - http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html
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