Walking around the Mexico City reminds me humans find or create difference. I have to wonder why would an elite forgo the emotions and excitement of being seen as the best, when as people we believe in differences between each other, possibly as a way of feeling valued. Where does this sense of value grow or get fed?
Today's Reflection:
I wrote this while observing for the first time the significant difference in class, privilege, and status of a group of people who I had, throughout my childhood and adolescence, believed or thought might finally be the homogeneous group of people that would be free of discrimination. In Mexico City, there are distinctions between Latinos. There are what appear to be European descendants, possibly Anglo, but definitely not gringo too.
My observation is that the wealthy in Mexico resemble the wealthy in the United States. The biggest distinction was that the poor in Mexico look more ailing than the poor in America. I notice the barriers to quality are the same as in the USA. The neighborhoods are broken up by property values. Mortgages or rent have become the new fences and walls guarding or filtering out, what might be biased-ly seen as the less worthy. Gentrification is still the tactic of the non-violent, less rude, and hungry debutantes. There is the same opportunity to recognize facades and arrogance.
I also realized that genuine quality in a product is similar to the genuine quality of a person. I can buy an elite watch, but if it doesn't tell me the time how I need to hear it, then it doesn't have the quality I need. Just like people who are valued beyond my price range, I may not be able to afford or reciprocate traits for the friendship with an elite person, and I can still meet my need for a healthy friend. So at what point do I become discriminating and segregating of myself from others.
I realized I am not a peasant, maybe at one time felt like one. Realizing I come from the stock of the "help", has not helped my self appreciation. Realizing that I come from the stalk of quality people helps me accept my greatness. All this reflection and contrast of cultures helps me ask the question, do we work to discriminate or are we also working to distinguish? Can pushing others away also be understood as pulling towards others we see as having a higher quality? Discrimination isn't as conveniently simple as race can make it. There are more factor that can be responsible for how discrimination and prejudice exist. Keeping with the metaphor of a luxury watch, what I have accepted is that we can all be quality watches. I see how significant it can be when someone has not developed an authentic understanding for how to tell time. These elitests tend to believe that the luxury watches' time is more accurate.
