Separate and Incomplete

Who would've known that in this day and age of the post-Civil Rights Movement, this society has gotten more and more separated and disconnected.  Let's say we're about two generations into a post-Civil Rights Movement society.  It seems that there appears to be more separation and disconnection in this day and age.

Now, I'm not going to be going into the whole inter-ethnic, inter-racial tension amongst all the various ethnic groups within the greater American society.  If anything, my personal theory is that the inter-racial, inter-ethnic tensions amongst differing groups is merely a symptom of what I'm about to share.

I joke around that the former largest book retailer is at fault.  (Border's)  All the different categories of books and separated and marketed accordingly.  Now that is for the convenience of the consumer who's shopping and looking for a specific book.  My question is that have we become a society who has over-compartmentalized to the detriment of humanity?  In the case of categorizing books, it makes sense to store and present accordingly in order to enable the shopper to find what book they're looking for.

In other words, do we separate and categorize more than we should?

Like people?

Or even differing aspects and facets of people?

I'm a book nerd.  I'll admit it.  I have yet to own a Nook or an iPad.  I have downloaded a handful of out of print books on PDF files to my lappy.  I'm just not used to reading off a screen, so I have a preference for actual books.  One of the few bookstores in San Francisco is Green Apple.  They carry a large amount of out of print books.  They have categories and sub-categories.  The books I've been looking for are those that tend to overlap-categorically.  I can go back and forth to like 7 different categorical sections in the store just to look for one title, and since their selection of used books are not inventoried, it's not like the staff could type up the title or author.  So basically, I can get lost and dizzy looking for a book.   That's just a book.  To put it simply, I can get lost and dizzy looking for a specific item composed of paper and ink.  Yet, we know there's much more to the paper and ink which what makes each book unique.

People are even much more complicated than that.

Online marketing, global economy, and marketing demographics has created more and more categories to place a person.  It makes things easier for advertisers and marketing departments in order to maximize the advertising dollar.

Like a pharmaceutical drug, there are side-effects.  Yes a pharmaceutical drug can benefit the user for a specific symptom and/or need with a likely risk of side effects that comes along with taking it.  Likewise this whole concept of breaking society and humanity down to demographics and categories, while benefiting the global market, has a side effect detrimental to humanity.

We're losing our wholeness.  Actually it's not so much that our wholeness is lost.  In all honesty, we can never lose our wholeness.  It's more of a lack of acknowledgment and validation of our wholeness that's missing.  We don't acknowledge our own wholeness, we don't acknowledge others and their wholeness, while conversely they don't acknowledge ours.

And that's what I mean as racial and ethnic tensions within society being symptomatic. Lack of acknowledgement on others' wholeness based on their racial and ethnic makeup.  During the Civil Rights Era, there were two main camps vying for a voice on how to achieve racial equality: one was for unconditional integration and the other was a proponent for creating a separate self-sufficient community. As someone who completed his undergrad degree in Ethnic Studies, I've heard both arguments and I can see validity on both arguments. 

But let's look at it from a much closer view:  Not acknowledging our own wholeness creates unnecessary stress, takes a toll on our health, and becomes an obstacles to our endeavors.  Going back to book shopping in the bookstore, I was looking for a book about healthy living, but because of the notoriety of the author, I had to look at the sections of psychology, metaphysics, religious theory, and even economics in addition to the health section.  The thing was, that book addressed every aspect of living: spirituality, health, finances, relationships, and psychology.  In other words, it was a book about wholeness.  Yet, there was no such section or category on wholeness at the bookstore.