Values

The worst thing about groups are their values. Traditional values, American values, family values, shared values, OUR values. Just code for white middle-class prejudices and discrimination, justification for greed and hatred. I believe in giving everyone, as I encounter them, one at a time the full value of their dignity and their honor in the world. Whether I’m seen as a celebrity on an elevator or I’m just the stranger, I open myself to them and I take them in and I give them everything I would want myself in terms of treatment, feeling and consideration. I call that a value.

(c) Robert Ziehe