Re: Yom Kippur and diversity in groups
From: Catherine Harper (tylikeskimo.com)
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 14:19:07 -0600 (MDT)

Just a moment to note my own background.  I'm pagan, and pretty darned
visiably so (though I'm not currently involved with organizing many large
public events).  I'm part of a religiously and culturally diverse
community (for that matter, quite economically and racially diverse,
though politically only along a much narrower spectrum), that includes
within it a number of communities of close physical proximity and greater
or lesser degrees of intentionality.

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Racheli Gai wrote:

> Wow, it sounds like you have a serious chip on your shoulder: Do you
> really believe that if an event is scheduled on a Jewish holidy it  means
> that people don't think Jews exist?   Could
> there be other reasons for the scheduling, which don't have anything to do
> with ignoring/disliking Jews?

Okay, to me this doesn't sound like a serious chip on one's shoulder to me
at all.  To me this sounds like something indicative of how much people
are aware of other people's constraints, and to what extent people are
really considered to be part of the community.

First off, scheduling sucks.  Anyone who's done a large amount of event
organization knows that, and everyone makes mistakes sometime and the only
thing you can do is get by as best you can.  (Or, sometimes it's not even
a mistake, per se, it's balancing several conflicts and settling on the
one you hope will be least conflicted.)

But when you're in a community, and feel part of a community, especially
if you feel like members of whatever affiliation in question make up a
fairly large part of the community, it feels really weird when your
constraints do not seem to be evaluated equally against those of those of
other people's.  (Though Samhain, for instance, gets a certain amount of
coattails cover because of Halloween.)

The truth of the matter is that in the US, almost nothing will be
scheduled to conflict with Christmas of Easter, but nothing else is given
that kind of consideration.  Most pagans (at least those beyond the
flaming teenage variety) seem to feel a social obligation to be "good
sports" about this kind of thing... and yet I have mixed feelings about it
all.  I mean, I think discussions along this line always go better with a
fair dose of humor and compassion.  But I don't think being a good sport
means you should sit down and shut up, either.

I think even such exchanges as "Hey, um, there are a lot of us that will
be effected by this, did you notice us or take us in to account."  "Oh, no
we didn't, I'm really sorry, let's make sure that these things are at
least on the calendar for next year" (or alternately "Yeah, and I'm really
sorry about hte conflict, but these other factors left us without any good
choices.")  are really important.  I'm not talking about hard and fast
rules, I'm just talking about courtesy and acknowledgement.  Scheduling is
hard, and it won't be perfect, but we can at least treat eachother well in
the process, yes?

> I think that you must realize that if *everyone's* holidays were taken
> into account, the possibility of finding times to meet will be reduced to
> somewhere around zero - since holidays are not the only element which puts
> constraints on organizing events.
> Within a community the issue is different: Of course I don't think we
> should schedule meetings on *any member's* holy (or highly significant)
> days!  This isn't the same, IMO, as trying to arrange general-public
> events.

I don't think there's such a clear line between events inside and outside
of a community.  When I have organized open invitation events, I usually
have a fair idea who is likely to be interested.  There are whole classes
of events I can be pretty certain my Christian friends are unlikely to be
interested in, so when scheduling those I know I'm relatively free not to
worry about that set of constraints (but I try to keep my eyes open
anyway).  I know one of my Mormon friends feels pretty strongly about
avoiding commerce on Sundays, so I'll at least make an effort avoid
planning group shopping expeditions she'd otherwise be interested in.  A
lot of it is as simple as knowing that if it is held at a certain time,
all these people I'd like to see won't be there.

As events get bigger and more public, it does get complicated...  but at
the very least, if you need to make a decision along the lines of "gee, in
this case the interests of everyone else are going to have to override the
needs of this particular group" it's important to be diplomatic.  Because
there is an implicit message of either "we didn't consider you" or "we
don't think you are a large or important enough part of this community to
schedule around".

Pagans are a fairly small and fairly new religion (or philsophy, or
culture affiliation, take your pick) and I think for the most part we
don't expect a lot of respect, and are generally satisfied if we can avoid
public ridicule.  (And yet, I know there have been complaints when a folk
music event was scheduled on top of Beltane, because there are a *lot* of
pagan folk musicians and it was considered insensitive.  It depends on the
event...)

Having said that, I know that I at least feel an enormous debt of
gratitude to my Jewish friends, both for the ways they have helped me
question general mass culture assumptions (for instance, the amount of
activities associated with Christian observances -- though often,
amusingly, with pagan roots -- that are in the public schools) and given
me and members ofmy community both moral and material support in
questioning such things publically.  It's always a difficult question,
when to go with the flow, and accept that for many things the majority
will carry the day, and when to challenge the assumption that says "you
must understand that you are a minority and that your customs simply don't
matter to the rest of us."

                                Catherine


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