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Lessons Learned
As a White male, there are not a lot of places where I could live and experience discrimination and prejudice over a long period of time. In most situations, it is White males who are doing the discriminating and who are prejudging those of other races, sexes, religions, etc. On the Hopi Indian Reservation in Northeastern Arizona, there have been relatively few non-Hopi living for an extended period of time. As a White male living on Hopi, I am the one who is “different,” a part of the “them”. The Hopi word “pahana” means “lost white brother,” but is used to identify any white person.
In the United States, we are particularly bad about seeing “us” and people like “us” as positive and good. And we see people not like “us” as less positive and less good. People, then, are prejudged based usually, but not always, on one of the seven legal classifications for discrimination: gender or sex, race or color, religion or creed, age, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity or nationality. Discrimination is the natural result that follows prejudice. Discrimination seems to be a natural way that humans deal with each other.
Jerome Bruner, well known psychologist writing in the second half of the 20th century, postulated that man makes sense out of the world by using four perceptual devices: same and different, structure and function, cause and effect, and patterns. Those are the schema we use to categorize our perceptions so we can use the knowledge gained. By developing schema (categories), we do not have to perceive things as being “new” each time we encounter them. We are instead capable of immediately undertaking the next action step required, rather than getting stuck each time figuring out what our perception actually implied.
Such categorizing, however, inevitably leads to discrimination. People we see as “being like us” are viewed as positive, friendly, useful, etc. Those we see as “different from us” are viewed as less positive, less friendly, less useful, etc. Think back to experiences gained in high school: we learned our school was “better” than the cross-town rival. And on it goes: our city is “good,” another city is “not as good”. Our country is “good, better, more logical” than other countries. Our families are good or better than others, and thus need to be protected, while other families are not as important.
Thus, to the White men who ran the corporations and government: White men were seen more positively, and non-Whites and women were seen less positively. This perception made it OK not to hire or promote non-Whites or women and OK to pay them less, because they were seen as less valuable. Even the founding fathers of our country, when they said “all men are created equal…” in the Declaration of Independence, meant only White male landowners. Women, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans could not initially vote or own land until they were allowed under various laws and constitutional amendments. So long as we use the “same and different” or the “us and them” paradigm, that discrimination is and remains the logical conclusion.
Yet, discrimination and prejudice are not limited to Whites alone. The Shungopavis view themselves as superior to other Hopi because they have a more complete ceremonial cycle. The Hotevillas think they are superior because they have kept more of the traditional ways and not adopted the “White man’s” conveniences nearly as much (electricity, water, sewer, jobs, money). The Shungopavis say those at First Mesa “might as well be Navajos”. They are really meaning the Tewa people of First Mesa who were invited to come to Hopi from the Rio
Grande around what is now Santa Fe in the mid-1600s to help guard against Navajo raids, but there is some generalization to all the First Mesa people and villages.
Members of each village on Hopi view themselves as superior to those of another village for one reason or another. This is much like students from Highland High School thinking them superior to those from Sandia High School. The teams, the classes, the