Your Way Is Not The Way For All

Summary

Books are NOT the end all be all of what makes a person "educated". Having the time, ability, focus, and access to reading is a privilege.

My reading choices as a child and my access to literature were very different from a lot of (mostly white) people I have known. The books that resonated with me or that were gifted to me by PoC family and friends were not the same as many of my non-PoC friends. There weren’t as many PoC focused books as there are now and very few that featured PoC as main characters like today. So, I don’t share the same attachment to books that were focused solely on White people and White experiences.

I think there is a disconnect with people when it comes to books and reading especially as far as seeing books as some kind of universal tool … they are absolutely not universal in any way and not everyone can have the same experience from a book or a movie or any other form of art especially when it’s written from only one perspective of one race or gender.

I think there is a lot of unrealized privilege when it comes to books and reading. Having the time to read, the ability to read, the neuro-ability to consume pages upon pages of text … these are not always available to every person. There are many ways that people can engage with art these days … and many ways that are more accessible to people with specialized needs. It’s very privileged to suggest there is only one way to engage with things or that everyone can have the same experience.

I said this yesterday and also this morning … everyone is different. Everyone learns differently … completely differently in some ways. Not everyone has the same abilities as everyone else.

Our brains are unique. Our spirits are unique. Our bodies are unique.

What resonates with you may not resonate with someone else.

What you perceive may not be what someone else perceives because quite literally your realities are different.

It doesn’t make anyone less than.

Reading isn’t for everyone for all kinds of reasons … but I come across a lot of people who think books are the end all be all of what makes a person “educated” and that line of thinking often comes from the very privileged.

Books … like movies … and music … are so so very personal for people. What moves them or what resonates with them artistically and why is DEEP seeded. The emotional, psychological, and spiritual nature of art and our attachments to it are sometimes impossible to sever. I don’t think such things can be forced upon people. Trying to get someone to love a book or a movie or a song you love …. trying to push your experience and expectations upon them is … off putting and weird.

I feel like I say this all the time and it’s just lost on people … people who claim to be so “educated” but they think their experience is the only way to experience something.

That the way they view the world is somehow this universal vision that everyone should have.

That how they learned is best for everyone.

I don’t know how anyone in this day and age could believe such nonsense, yet they do.