So, wait, we're NOT exceptional then?

It is said that history is written by the winners. In the latest blog entry by Anand Ghiridharadas, and his interview with Ayad Akhtar, they refer to a quote by Norbert Elias, the great German sociologist: 

“The established majority takes its we-image from a minority of its best, and shapes a they-image of the despised outsiders from the minority of their worst.” 

And they go on to give this case in point: "We've had a tough time getting anybody to take white domestic terrorism seriously as terrorism. Now that conversation has finally gone mainstream, when of course the threat to the American social body because of Islamic terrorism has really been pretty minuscule in comparison over the years." 

So history is written by the winners and the majority gets to not only define themselves, but the minority as well, all of which only perpetuates those myths and makes our job harder to show that we are all equal and all have the same strengths and weaknesses.

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