The Differences Are Tiny
The differences between any two people in the entire world are at most two hundredths of one percent. The commonality between Barbara Love1 and me is 99.98 percent. She’s a Black woman college professor, and I’m a white working-class hick2 with a farm background. (Well, she has a farm background, too.) But we’ve been paying attention to these two hundredths differences because of oppression, and this is correct. These differences have been used—the oppression has been nailed onto them. But the basic reality is that any one of you, and I, are almost completely alike. The differences are very, very tiny. So anything that goes on making a big thing of those differences, for any purpose other than to contradict the oppression and distress that keeps us apart, is pure garbage.
Harvey Jackins
From the 1986 Peace and
Disarmament Activists’ Workshop
1 Barbara Love is the International Liberation Reference Person for African Heritage People.
2 “Hick” means unsophisticated person.