>You can't say a cube shaped tumbler is worthless because it
>doesn't match your set ovalware and then either marginalize it
>to use for the children or throw it out when it might have
>been made from cyrtal comparable in worth to the oval
>tumbler.
>
>If that's the case, someone without the ovalware bias has to
>step in and say hey- don't be mad at the cubed tumbler for
>being cube shaped. You are misusing these items. Recognize
>them for their true worth instead of being mad that they aint
>oval.
>

I was personifying the tumblers. For example the cube shaped tumbler is a white man and the oval shaped tumbler is a black man. In keeping with this, who is the 'you' who 'can't say' in your above example?

Some differences are rational and some are emotional. Of course you can say that cube shaped tumbler has the same capacity as the oval shaped tumbler, irrespective of their shape, but you cannot say that one individual white man has the same capacity as one individual black man because its not true. Just like you cannot say that one individual white man has the same capacity as another individual white man. We are not only different, but we all have different capacities. Or at least that is the way that individuals PERCEIVE things wehen they seek an ingroup.

The difference in colour is an emotional difference. In a perfect world it should not inform ingroup association, but it does and I can understand why. Look at things empirically. Name one mixed ethnic group that genuinely gets on in the world. This is why I think the key is in education; not to teach all ethnicites that they are different as proposed by this forum, but to teach that in the final analysis, in terms of colour, that is not a legitimate signifier of difference.