Growing up in a homogeneous group can breed a kind of cultural illiteracy — not just ignorance of other traditions, but a deep-seated discomfort with difference itself. The cost? Empathy narrows. Curiosity dims. And a fear of the “other” festers.
There is a subtle tyranny that can emerge within homogeneous groups, especially during formative years, where anyone different is looked down upon or ridiculed. Here’s a reflection:
The Folly of Sameness
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In halls where every voice sounds just the same,
Where mirrors line the walls with matching frames,
A child is taught to fear the foreign name,
To mock the soul that dances in new flames.
The laughter sharpens like a teacher’s rule,
The different child becomes the class’s tool—
A joke, a jest, a silence carved in stone,
Their colors drained until they match the tone.
What harm is done when no one sees the sky
From any lens but theirs? They don’t ask why
Another walks with songs they’ve never heard,
Or shapes their dreams with an unspoken word.
Sameness is easy, sameness is safe.
It feeds the need to not feel out of place.
But sameness blinds, and sameness breeds a wall,
Until the mind grows narrow, false, and small.
And those who dare to speak or dress or pray
In ways that drift from the accepted way—
They bear the weight of sneers that wound the soul,
While they still rise, and make the fractured whole.
