Comments on: Legacy 9: On Traveling Blind (or, “The Sex Life of Stereotypes”)

By: Journeys: August 2008

Journeys: August 2008 — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 02:51:41 +0000

[...] recurs, expands, evolves.Clay Burell recently posted a series of “Culture Clips,” including one on Stereotypes. He wondered:”Am I the only person who has noticed how easy, perhaps even normal, it is for us to [...]

By: LeaderTalk: Tracy Rosen

LeaderTalk: Tracy Rosen — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:27:48 +0000

[...] initially saw this plugin at work on Clay’s blog, Beyond School, and then saw it again on Social Actions, a network I recently joined (It’s founder, Peter Deitz, [...]

By: diane

diane — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:57:04 +0000

I hope I’ve learned to see the people around me:
“see” as in peer beneath the surface, search for the common humanity, refrain from those snap judgments I always come to regret.

dianes last blog post..Invisibility: Variations on a Theme

By: Taking Action at Leading from the Heart

Taking Action at Leading from the Heart — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:31:42 +0000

[...] initially saw this plugin at work on Clay’s blog, Beyond School, and then saw it again on Social Actions, a network I recently joined (It’s founder, Peter [...]

By: The Jose Vilson — I Walked Across an Empty Land, I Knew The Backways Like The Back Of My Hand

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:34:06 +0000

[...] is one of the lost blogs I wrote while I was at Dominican Republic. It was inspired by another Clay Burell post, regarding tourism and its caricatures. Thought I’d post it up tonight in light of the [...]

By: Kate Tabor

Kate Tabor — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:47:55 +0000

Totally true, I think, except when we are given the time to get to know the place we are visiting.
Example: 22 years (can it be?) ago when I was the cook/deckhand/stewardess on a 75′ private sailboat that was based in Antigua, my first impressions were negative and stereotypical. Chickens and goats in the road, dusty and dry, money that looked and felt like the play money from elementary school. Why would people come here to visit? I wondered. It took about two weeks and I was hooked. I fell in love with the chicken and goats and dust and most of all the people. And I learned my lesson about traveleing. I learned that it makes no sense to go where the tourists go or to eat what the tourists eat. The boat took me as far as (then) Yugoslavia (now Croatia and Bosnia) where I learned about food shortages, Tito, and lamb all ways.
Once, in Portugal, Sam and I met our innkeeper in the fish market. Our host was horrified that we would see this side of his beautiful city (Sintra) but my husband and I could not have been happier pointing and buying.
We use this travel strategy here in the United States as well. Why eat at Applebee’s when you can eat Drake’s Bay Oyster stew?
I just returned from South Dakota, a place that many people in Chicago make jokes about, and I’m sure that many folks driving through bought a Corn Palace shot glass and kept going. Feels like home to me.

Kate Tabors last blog post..Reading, today

By: jose

jose — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:55:00 +0000

Funny you should say that, because I have a series of blogs I wrote during my trip in Dominican Republic that I’ve deemed the lost files of DR, since I just started blogging all over again while I got back to US. Anyways, in it, I detail how, in the resorts, I felt like a stranger in my own homeland. A huge population of people from Germany, Ireland, Scotland, England, France, and every other Western European country you can name practically make these 4-star resorts home, staying for 2 weeks and contemplating their returns in a few months.

All this is happening while, surrounding the area, are poverty-stricken homes of the people of Dominican Republic, people starving and stealing just to get by for the day. Even inside these resorts, there are people who never take a day off, and have no choice if they want their family to survive. Imagine having to work from 6am – 12pm every single day with little to no breaks with all the degradation of little brats throwing spitballs at your performances and older men and women who have more than enough money to forget their manners at the serving places there.

And all this is happening in Dominican! As soon as I left the resorts and back to where my mother grew up in Santo Domingo, things changed for us. You never saw anything resembling White people nor did you see anyone take things for granted. People worked hard just to get a chance to shower. And kids rarely acted up because if they did, WACK! And of course, these are the places the “servants” at the resorts come back home to. You rarely see them at home until the weekend or if you stay up long enough to see their headlights come home.

Then again, who wants to see the reality of a country when they can get a caricature? It’s just more comfortable.

joses last blog post..All For Naught