So what’s wrong with everyone? From the white guy who hides his prejudice behind a catchy phrase like “One Nation, One Language” to the black guy who insists ”No one but a Black person knows what it is like here,” we find a way to shut others out or shut ourselves in – and then wonder why our doing the same thing over and over doesn’t get us what we want.
It would appear that no matter what we do, we can’t get rid of each other. Drat it all. Perhaps it’s time to shatter the mirrors of diversity and unity and reveal what we’re really all about: in the same place under the same flag. That’s it. It doesn’t need to get any more specific than that, and it damn sure doesn’t need to get any more general than that.
The mirrors of “diversity” and “unity” reflect back to us an unreasonable expectation and an unrealistic picture of that which will never exist. Human beings are gregarious, period. We like our own — from race and religion to experience and value system — and we naturally gravitate toward that which we recognize as “us.” We’ve all agreed to one nation and one currency. Why isn’t that enough?
“Us” is first going to be anyone who looks like us. That’s not prejudice; that’s biology. Don’t believe me? Call a Chinese infant a racist because s/he prefers his/her mother to your blue eyes or dark skin and see how far it gets you. As we grow, we like or don’t like what we hear and feel - on our skin and in our hearts. We gravitate toward those who share in our experiences and who have similar values. When not enough of the same-looking people share our experiences and values, we have proven ourselves a migratory people, actively seeking those who do - often with little regard for race. Poverty, for instance, is colorblind. Those who think poverty is a lifestyle choice? Just blind.
We aren’t a melting pot - and we shouldn’t be. Whoever coined that term should be shot for humanitarian treason. “Melting” strongly implies dilution and doing away with the purity of self (and the ghastly prospect of “fusion cuisine”). Who would ever be in favor of that? Yet this is the mirror America wakes to each day. America operates under the delusion that there’s something wrong with wanting to be with and of your own, and that in order to accept “them,” “we” must give up something integral about ourselves.
Article comments
1 - Jordan Richardson
Wonderful, wonderful fucking article.
As someone living in a society that considers itself a mosaic, I've long wondered about the American melting pot and about what good it does people to melt into the same colourless goop. It's good to see somebody else struggling with that hollow philosophy.
2 - Joanne Huspek
I agree. What a great article.
I was just thinking of the Native American view of what happened in the last 400 years. The "Europeans" devised a divine reason to mow down the "savages" and force them to assimilate, instead of (as you say) being a good neighbor.
I'm pretty sure we as a culture are never going to learn from our mistakes.
3 - Teri Centner
That was great, Diana! Both of your analogies -- shattering the mirror and after-the-game potluck -- were ideas that I never would have come up with. Yet they both made good sense to me.
If you have never read "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, I highly recommend it. She is a woman who, I think, did a great job of shattering mirrors. She first shattered the "submissive daughter/wife" image created for her by her Somalian father/family. After shattering that one, she had to start all over again and shatter the "immigrant" image assigned to her by Dutch social workders. This is one lady who's never going to give into "victimhood."
4 - Diana Hartman
Teri,
What we call victimhood is seen as a lifestyle choice by a lot of American women. This social curiosity will be the featured discussion on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet on Friday, August 15th.
5 - Jason J. Campbell
Diana,
Loved your article. The discussion of the mirror is a very interesting concept because it is a reflection of the self rather than finding comfort in that image, some only see their failures to embody the expectations of their dominant society and their failure is embodied. The metaphor's cool because the person's physical body is a representation of this failure. I would have never thought of it in these terms, making the pressure to assimilate that much more dangerous. Loved the metaphor.