Dr. Lawrence talks about inter-cultural relationships today.
Things to think about:
How can people of different cultures find common ground?
Common ground
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Audio Chapters
.....There’s a lot of good things in each culture. Not all things are good; a lot of things are bad and more is going bad, but there are still some good things, and if you pull together with that under some common ground, you can go a long way, you can do a lot of things to improve. But you’ve got to recognize that there’s a common need somewhere, there’s a common ground, that we need to get on that common ground....... You see it in natural tragedies when something happens, a tornado or something when people will start pulling together and helping each other, because there’s something in common there. When that’s over with, then they separate again. But common ground is one thing that will bring people together temporarily. The other thing is middle ground. And middle ground is where everything becomes equal and everything is neutral. And two of the places I know where there should be a middle ground and there isn’t, is in education and in churches. If you go back home, you got Indian churches and white churches, and Indian Presbyterians and white Presbyterians; white Baptists, Indian Baptists, and they’re all separate. So there’s little common ground there. And education, as long as education continues the way it is, there’s not going to be a common ground. But those are the two natural places where there should be middle ground, and it’s not happening. So I don’t know what else there is.
Oral History- Interview |
Narrator Elden Lawrence Interviewer Deborah Locke made in New Ulm, MN |
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Citation: Minnesota Historical Society. U.S. - Dakota War of 1862. Common ground April 20, 2024. http://www.usdakotawar.org/node/1290
Viewpoints: All viewpoints expressed on this website are those of the contributors, and are not representative of the Minnesota Historical Society.
