It's Long and Thick... No, It's Long and Thin...

... So says the second blind man to the first.

The story goes like this: Two blind men were standing near an elephant, one in front of the elephant and the other behind the same animal. They were then asked to describe the elephant. The first blind man reached out and had the elephant's trunk in his hands. He described what he felt. The second blind man reached out and had the elephant's tail in his hands. He too described what he felt.

Question: whose description is right? Both descriptions ARE correct because it depends on which part of the elephant was described. Both descriptions are equally valid.

Moral of the story: When two accounts seem to contradict each other, we tend to think one must be incorrect, or maybe less correct. But it really depends on where we stand and our perspective of the issue.

I thought this story might give us some insight into how we view race. A CNN commentary this past weekend says that whites and blacks view the same issue -- race -- differently, http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/28/pitts.black.america/index.html.

Hey another story to share. So I heard there would be an ethnography performance sometime in April, here on our campus, on a recently concluded research on what white female students think about race and the challenges they encounter when facing race issues. Scribble a comment or two for more info.