Objectification

http://www.walkingbutterfly.com/2010/12/22/when-you-kill-ten-million-africans-you-arent-called-hitler/

A friend posted this article on FB, and as I read it, I realized how much I have been struggling with othering and objectification in what I have seen here in Iceland and elsewhere. Right now it is more focused on Iceland as I am living here and their conversations are the top thing on my mind.
I even find myself doing some of this as I teach, where it is easy to use the US as an example, since there is just so much out there about the US, youtube, research and media in general. I find myself saying things like not to generalize or qualifying it with my own experiences in the Midwest. But it worries me because I see how easily we or one can draw a circle around one´s self and point outside of it and say this is not me or look how strange different or odd those people outside of the circle are. This includes cultural voyeurism things akin to ´culture days´ Where people are encouraged to put their different culture on display for the curious the unknowing and the leering public. Sure it can create a modicum of cross cultural interaction and some understanding, but what my problem with this type of work is that it is always and invariably an us versus them scenario.
Here is my flag, my language, my food, my music. It doesn´t often lead to the deeper discussion and development of cross-cultural understanding that really needs to take place. And sadly much of what I have seen here is in this vein, only skin deep and at best focused on the tip of the iceberg. In fact just thinking about it is so upsetting that I can´t focus my thoughts enough to write something organized about it. And added to that is that I find it difficult to find people to discuss it with, who would understand without getting defensive with the critique I am making about all the good things that are going on here.
I find my mind going off to think of nicer and easier topics, than a critique of something so hard. I know I have a few articles to write, and i have to think hard about how they are framed and phrased, but my mind wont let me think about them yet so I will keep trying to write ideas and thoughts on paper and elsewhere until I have it all framed and ready to just write write write.