“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.”                    -Alice Walker

As we grow up, we are taught to think in binary- good and evil, black and white, us and them.  However, this dulls complex thinking.  We are not taught that there are shades of grey in-between the two extremes.

We live in a world where white culture is the dominant culture and the “norm”.  What gets left out but implicitly stated is “the other”; blackness is considered the absence of whiteness, but never is whiteness considered “lacking” blackness.  We perceive with preconceived notions about what is “right” based on media and shallowly analyzed brief human interactions.

In the same thread, among these binaries are ones that are never mentioned.  Why is it that when we mention the poor, “underdeveloped” countries, there is no such thing as “overdeveloped”?  Why are the “underprivileged” always pitied, but the “overprivileged” never scrutinized?  Who sets the standard for the world?  And who is “the other”?