The Malan race is defined by ideology rather than by superficialities. Malans transcend racial stereotypes and the boundaries of archaic race categories. Malans form bonds based on linkages deeper than skin and, as a result, help move the world closer to racial unity, improved race relations, and toward the end of racism.
I Am Malan
Be Your True Identity
We are Malan
Malans:
"...renounce racial stereotypes."
"...renounce past perceptions."
"...renounce archaic racial definitions."
"...wipe the slate clean and choose to start fresh."
You will find Malans living all over the globe. Their skin is saturated with greater or lesser amounts of melanin. Their mother tongue may sound native or foreign to a listener.
- The skinny: a one-page informational doc (pdf)
- The fat: a multi-page informational doc (pdf)
How Do I Know If I am or S/he is Malan?
You will know a Malan by their ideology and the actions that result from these principles.
Are You Malan?
1. They listen and they hear.
Malans “pay attention to others and to the world around them.”
“They work hard to hear what other people say. They can follow an argument, track logical reasoning, detect illogic, hear the emotions that lie behind both the logic and the illogic, and ultimately empathize with the person who is feeling those emotions.”
2. They read and they understand.
Malans “can gain insight from not only The American Scholar and the New York Review of Books but also from Scientific American, the Economist, the National Enquirer, Vogue, and Reader’s Digest.
They are moved by what they see in a great art museum and what they hear in a concert hall. They recognize extraordinary athletic achievements; they are engaged by classic and contemporary works of theater and cinema; they find in television a valuable window on popular culture. When they wander through a forest or a wetland or a desert, they can identify the wildlife and interpret the lay of the land. They can glance at a farmer’s field and tell the difference between soy beans and alfalfa. They recognize fine craftsmanship, whether by a cabinetmaker or an auto mechanic. And they can surf the World Wide Web. All of these are ways in which the eyes and the ears are attuned to the wonders that make up the human and the natural worlds.”
No Malan person “can possibly master all these forms of 'reading,'” but we should strive to adept at many of them and should be curious about all of them.
3. They can talk with anyone.
Malan people know how to talk. “They can give a speech, ask thoughtful questions, and make people laugh. They can hold a conversation with a high school dropout or a Nobel laureate, a child or a nursing-home resident, a factory worker or a corporate president. Moreover, they participate in such conversations not because they like to talk about themselves but because they are genuinely interested in others.”
4. They can write clearly, persuasively and movingly.
“What goes for talking goes for writing as well.” Malan people know how to express “what is in their minds and hearts so as to teach, persuade, and move the person who reads their words.”
5. They can solve a wide variety of puzzles and problems.
Malan people exercise a keen “ability to look at a complicated reality, break it into pieces, and figure out how it works in order to do practical things in the real world. Part of the challenge in this, of course, is the ability to put reality back together again after having broken it into pieces—for only by so doing can we accomplish practical goals without violating the integrity of the world we are trying to change.”
6. They respect rigor not so much for its own sake but as a way of seeking truth.
Malan people appreciate knowledge, learning, and “a closely reasoned argument without being unduly impressed by mere logic. They understand that knowledge serves values, and they strive to put these two—knowledge and values—into constant dialogue with each other... in the service of some larger, humane vision.”
7. They practice humility, tolerance, and self-criticism.
“This is another way of saying that they can understand the power of other people’s dreams and nightmares as well as their own. They have the intellectual range and emotional generosity to step outside their own experiences and prejudices, thereby opening themselves to perspectives different from their own.” Malans are committed to tolerance and “celebrate the wider world: studying foreign languages, learning about the cultures of distant peoples, exploring the history of long ago times, discovering the many ways in which men and women have known the sacred and given names to their gods. Without such encounters, we cannot learn how much people differ—and, more importantly, how much we have in common.”
8. They understand how to get things done in the world.
Malans “struggle to leave the world a better place than they had found it.” Learning how to get things done in the world in order to leave it a better place is one of the most important lessons Malans learn and impart. “It is fraught with peril because the power to act in the world can so easily be abused—but we fool ourselves if we think we can avoid acting, avoid exercising power, avoid joining the world’s fight. And so we study power and struggle to use it wisely and well.”
9. They nurture and empower the people around them.
“Nothing is more important in tempering the exercise of power and shaping right action than the recognition that no one ever acts alone.” Malans “understand that they belong to a community whose prosperity and well-being are crucial to their own, and they help that community flourish by making the success of others possible. It is the community that empowers the free individual, just as it is free individuals who lead and empower the community. The fulfillment of high talent, the just exercise of power, the celebration of human diversity: nothing so redeems these things as the recognition that what seem like personal triumphs are in fact the achievements of our common humanity.”
10. They follow E. M. Forster’s injunction from Howards End: “Only connect . . .”
Being Malan “means being able to see connections that allow one to make sense of the world and act within it in creative ways. Every one of the qualities I have described here—listening, reading, talking, writing, puzzle solving, truth seeking, seeing through other people’s eyes, leading, working in a community—is finally about connecting. Malans strive to “gain the power and the wisdom, the generosity and the freedom to connect.”
Abstracted and adapted from: Cronon, William. "Only Connect...: The Goals of a Liberal Education," The American Scholar, (Autumn, 1998), p.73-80.
Note on why we use Wiliam Cronon's "Only Connect..." as the basis for Malan ideology: Because in simple and succinct prose, it comes close to perfectly defining who we are.