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This excerpt from Robin DiAngello's book White Fragility, do represents the Baganda status in British Project Uganda:

"Scholar Marilyn Frye uses the metaphor of a bird cage to describe the interlocking forces of oppression." If you stand close to a birdcage and press your face against the wires,your perception of the bars will disappear and you will have almost unobstructed view of the bird.

If you turn your head to examine one wire of the cage closely,you will not be able to see the other wires. If your understanding of the cage is based on this myopic view,you may not understand why the bird doesn't just go around the single wire and fly away. You might even assume that bird liked or chose its place in the cage. But if you stepped back and took a wider view,you would begin to see that the wires come together in an interlocking pattern--a pattern that works to hold the bird firmly in place.

It now becomes clear that a network of systematically related barriers surrounds the bird. Taken individually,none of these barriers would be that difficult for the bird to get around,but because they interlock with each other,they throughly restrict the bird. While some birds may escape the cage,most will not.And certainly those that do escape will have to navigate many barriers that birds outside the cage do not"

Humanlove 7 Oct 26
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Excellent metaphor and excerpt.

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Yes! & some people will actually be blind to some of the barriers--literally not be able to perceive them at all.

Carin Level 8 Oct 27, 2018
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