Inclusion and Exclusion in Our Daily Lives INTRODUCTION PART I: CHILD'S VIEW PART II: STEADYING GAZES
Section I views
the
dynamics of inclusion and exclusion through the eyes of children, or
more
usually, through the eyes of adults revisiting their own childhoods with
a
steady gaze and pondering what names they might give to their own
actions and
those of the people around them. These stories focus on the bafflement
and
unease children experience as they begin to realize that there are
forces
beyond their understanding or control, forces that seep in from the
adult world
and begin, before they even have names for them, to define them and
their
world. Children are, as we see in Bernice Fisher's "Because of a
Doll" and Christina Lovin's "A Cup of White Sugar", complicit
before they are fully aware. Kenneth McManus in his memoir "Of Heroes
and
Such" describes both a state of inclusion and social imbeddedness - and
the challenges that entered his life and that of his African-American
family
when they left the generous bounds of their African-American community
in
Virginia for life on a military base in Germany. Alan Elyshevitz
captures
extremely well the reluctant coming of age of a young Jewish boy and
what it
is, before we are ready, to assume the burden of prejudice.
In Section II, we
hear stories of young people
struggle for acceptance from the points of view of caring adults, either
counselors or teachers. In Anna Steegmann's story, "The Calling," it
is the young Haitian boy who must overcome his prejudice to see her as
more
than the color of her skin. Deidra Razzaque's lovely poem, "The Name You
Lost," reaches out to a boy, offering a second chance to find the
positive
core of a damaged identity. Bernice Fisher's second story, "The Tamarix
Bush," ponders the impact of competing drives for inclusion - that of a
family that wants to keep all their children together as a family, even
if it
involves sacrifice from the individuals involved, and a principal who
wants to
encourage the more intellectually able members to enter the bigger
world.
