CLASS DYNAMICS, EQUITY AND THE POWER OF ART

Xavier, this was fun to read and brought up related thoughts. Some time back--and I wish I could say this guilt complex was entirely expunged--I had experiences where I just opened up my house for a stranger to move in. Someone considerably lower down the privilege line than me. Guilt. A sense that I didn't deserve my privilege, and had no right to protect it.  By extension, I suppose, I didn't consider those better off than me as being entitled to THEIR privilege. But if they have a right to privilege, relative to mine, then I have a right to my privilege, relative to others. So it behooves me to join forces with the higher ups, and not contribute to lowering them any more than I'd welcome being lowered. It's sort of a new concept, actually.

So the resulting question is how do we preserve class privilege equitably. One answer, I think, is to make habitat of the lowest rung of society, rock bottom sparing in resources though it be, beautiful and wholesome enough that those at the top could beart to spend a night there. That is where the power of art could prevail.

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Trevor Burrowes Hi Eileen, please take a deep breath before you read what I just posted. I'm trying to feel my way along, and my ideas tend, in the process, to range beyond political correctness. Take equality. It hasn't worked in any large society that I know of. Not even in the Soviet Union. Not even in China. Cuba at one time might have come closest. Then I try to think of equality a different way. If all the parts of a machine are equal, the machine can't function. I've heard it proposed that it's preferable in society to promote equity, as opposed to equality. And I'm trying to work with that idea just now. I also don't see the point of compensating individuals; the bigger question is whether you can make their given society function more equitable. You'll see in what I posted (at the end) the proposal to make the bottom of society dignified and survivable. And I can see that the top of society (who in Jamaica are on the white or light side) are actually helpful to those "in between" like me--to protect ourselves, to break down division between the top. We need order, and this is how I see to promote it. And then the bottom is where we must all come together to make very orderly and stable. Just quick thoughts. Then there is the gigantic question of blackness (what I call African identity), which I see as more about place than race, but later for that.