Imagine you’re walking or driving down the street and you see a young teenage girl standing on the sidewalk.
She has her hair dyed black and gelled up in spikes. She’s wearing heavy black makeup, black lipstick, black eyeshadow, and she’s penciled her eyebrows so thickly that they’re three times their normal size.
She’s wearing safety pins for jewelry, a thick, heavy, oversized leather jacket covered in chains and spikes, a short leather miniskirt, fishnet stockings, and heavy black combat boots. She’s also wearing wide wrist cuffs covered in spikes.
Keep that image in your mind.
Now imagine you’re walking or driving down the street and you see a businessman standing on the sidewalk.
He’s wearing an expensive tailored suit with his tie cinched up all the way to his neck. He’s wearing an expensive watch, a gold tiepin, a brightly colored pocket square, highly polished leather shoes, a leather belt, and he’s carrying a briefcase.
He keeps his hair clipped short, he has a manicure, and he’s in excellent shape with broad, muscular shoulders and not a scrap of fat around his midsection.
Both of these two people are broadcasting to the world that they belong to two separate and mutually exclusive social demographics.
Both of them are using their clothes, their appearance, their visual presentation, and their body language to announce to everyone they see that they belong to two separate groups.
Every single one of us can tell at a split-second’s glance exactly which group these people belong to. None of us could possibly mistake the signals they’re sending. None of us could possibly think either of them belongs to the other person’s group.
We aren’t doing these people any disservice by making these judgments. Quite the contrary. We’re doing both of these people a massive service.
They want us to make these judgments. They want us to understand the very first time we see them exactly who they are, what they value, and where they belong in society. That’s exactly why both of them use these signals—so we understand these things right off the bat BEFORE we find out anything else about them.
Both of these people want to make an impression on us. Both of these people want our first impression to color everything else we might learn about who they are. Neither of these people wants to leave any doubt in our minds exactly who we’re dealing with.
These people do this so that we WILL make these judgments. These people want to make sure we understand that these are the most important things we can possibly find out about who they are, what they value, and where they fit in society.
Neither of these people wants to be mistaken for the other. Each of them would be highly insulted if anyone made the mistake of assigning them to the other person’s group.
Neither of these people wants to be included in the other person’s group. Belonging to the other person’s group is the worst fate each of them can possibly imagine.
The businessman would never want anyone to think of him as fringe, rebellious, or counterculture. The goth teenager would never want anyone to think of her as driven, ambitious, or successful.
No one wants to be included in opposing or even different groups. No one wants inclusion.
When people say they want inclusion, they really mean they want acceptance.
Everyone wants their life choices, preferences, and group affiliations to be accepted without any pressure, manipulation, or implication that we should change to something else or to fit what someone else thinks we should be.
We want the freedom and acceptance to live our values, associate with people who agree with us and share our tastes, and not to be bombarded every minute of the day with the message that we’re wrong, evil, or misguided for choosing to live this way.
No one wants inclusion. Inclusion isn’t a thing. These lines between groups and demographics are there for a reason. They’re there to mark that Group A is over here and Group B is over there.
No one in Group A wants to cross that line to be included in Group B and vice versa.
What they really want is to be left alone to follow their own path without any interference from others.
This applies to all of us regardless of what group or demographic we belong to.
The sooner we all understand this and learn it, the better we’ll be able to live with each other, accept each other, and actually come to value each other because of our differences instead of hating each other for them.
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