Cultural Shunning

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Cultural Shunning

We tend to underestimate,
to isolate or tease or bait
the children of the heads of state
sent to our country to educate.

We shun them or we inundate
with judgments that excoriate
their daily prayers that ululate,
or trappings that seem too ornate.

Before you do, please choose to wait,
considering what is the fate
of these strangers you think you hate
who’ve entered in our nation’s gate.

That student that you underrate?
That strange man that you will not date,
make fun of over dress or weight?
One day may be a potentate!

I wonder, can you “guesstimate”
how likely when he’s called to rate
our country as a foe or mate––
he is to underestimate?

The word prompt today was “Underestimate.”

18 thoughts on “Cultural Shunning”

  1. ΠιCΘLΞ's avatarSabiscuit

    Interesting life lesson, Judy. It is something I was privileged to experience as an international student. You see people in a room and ten or twenty years into the future, the game is won by those worked slowly towards realising their ambitions.

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      1. ΠιCΘLΞ's avatarSabiscuit

        My personal experience was positive because I was too busy working to pay attention to anything negative anyone said. To make a very long story short, while doing postgraduate research, I worked as a consultant for a non profit group and part of that job was to help host countries understand international scholarship students. Basically, what I’ve learned from that is that people will act according to how they see themselves in the distant future. People who expect to hold positions of authority tend to do better than those whose immediate concern is with “partying.” I remember a very reserved young woman from Finland who hated small talk and didn’t make many friends. Five years later, she won a prestigious fellowship and is now working as a diplomat. The world is her oyster. She may need to polish her social skills, but she has plenty of time.

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          1. ΠιCΘLΞ's avatarSabiscuit

            Several countries. Please accept my apologies for being vague but I am afraid I can’t say much for privacy reasons. The students were from Ivy League universities in the United States.

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            2. ΠιCΘLΞ's avatarSabiscuit

              I was out of town for a work event and was hoping readers would use the contact form linked in the menu to get in touch if they needed to. Thank you and warm regards.

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  2. hirundine608's avatarhirundine608

    Don’t get me started … these are people, families, brought in to be puppets. Puppets that uphold and maintain the bankers hold on things. Robbing the people, keeping them oppressed.

    Make fun of them? Heck, they do that all by themselves. All wars are bankers wars. Cheers Jamie

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      I’m just saying that we do not influence thoughts by reviling and isolating. The same can be said of any immigrant. If you want to affect someone, make a friend of him, not an enemy. The same goes for changing prejudices and ways of thinking.

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      1. hirundine608's avatarhirundine608

        True enough. Yet it would be a mistake to assume that immigrants are not without prejudices and do not cling to their ways of thinking. The majority of immigrants move for the dosh. Not to make friends, outside of their cultures.

        The picture that illustrates the poem just screams, european sycophant. The clothes, the saddlery, etc. Right now, one of the bogeymen of the news. Is the dictator of N.Korea, Kim Jong Un. Yet he was schooled in Switzerland, home of the international banker. How does one relate to that?

        The English, went into India with their guns and robbed that country blind. Also growing opium poppies that they then exported into China and then silks, slaves and tea back the other way. The Sassoons, Goldsmiths and the Rothschilds. International bankers, never really gave it up. They just choose puppets, like Mr. Nehru to maintain the influence. All wars are bankers wars.

        I’m an immigrant, too. Cheers Jamie.

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        1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

          Hi Jamie, That was the only photo I could find that illustrated foreign heads of state. Actually it was a photo of part of Haile Selassie’s Royal Escort for a birthday parade–or perhaps it was Timkat. It doesn’t adequately illustrate but just suggests the poem.. I hate to publish photos I don’t take and had spent so long on the post already that i didn’t want to look for hours through my photos to try to find a better one. I don’t support despots or dictators or oppressors of the people, Jamie. My point is that if we are going to have to negotiate with people–and it is often more necessary to negotiate with feared dictators than friendly nations, then why alienate them even before you make contact? I get angry at times and approach people from that angry state at times, but I find I usually win no points at all in that state, because we are confronting each other from an antagonistic stance even before the discussion begins. There is a reason why diplomacy is called diplomacy..and if you catch the student at the right point, you can sometimes even educate him…Again, not disputing anything you say. I agree entirely. I’m making a different point.. perhaps not successfully.

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