Sam Smith
Cities with a majority black population: How are places like Detroit, Memphis and New Orleans different from other American cities? The nation’s capital is currently almost evenly split but was majority black for over five decades. I lived there as a white guy during this time and wonder why those years lacked the sort of conflict that’s going on elsewhere now. One thought that occurs to me is that DC had a complexity of which ethnicity was just a part. Also on the board, for example, was economic class and neighborhood. Incidentally, we’re also talking about a city in which 25% are not religiously affiliated and 10% are gay or lesbian. Diversity is diverse.
Diversity can be fun, instructive and a pleasant way of living: Thanks in no small part to a media concentrating on the evils of our time, we tend to ignore the fact that diversity doesn’t just cause social conflict, it can add variety, enjoyment and education to our lives. If everyone was just like me, I’d be bored as hell.
Race is a racist concept: As I wrote some years back: “Our concept of race comes largely from religion, literature, politics, and the oral tradition. It comes creaking with all the prejudices of the ages. It reeks of territoriality, of jingoism, of subjugation, and of the abuse of power. As Thomas S. Martin has written: ‘The widest genetic divergence in human groups separates the Africans from the Australian aborigines, though ironically these two 'races' have the same skin color.’ DNA research has revealed just how great is our misconception of race. In The History and Geography of Human Genes, Luca Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford and his colleagues describe how many of the variations between humans are really adaptations to different environmental conditions (such as the relative density of sweat glands or lean bodies to dissipate heat and fat ones to retain it).” In fact you can find more genetic differences within the black “race” than between say, your average “white” and “black.”
Which is why I use the term ethnic instead of race. Understanding that our differences are predominantly cultural rather than genetic greatly increases our capacity to change how we think about them.
More emphasis on history and civics – A couple of years ago Education Week found that fifteen states require students to take a U.S. history exam and 19 for civics. Education Week did a 50 state survey that found that “while most states require students to study civics, just eight require them to take a yearlong civics or government class in order to graduate. In comparison, a year of U.S. history is a graduation requirement in 31 states.”
In other words, in 19 states you don’t even have to take a history course and in 35 there is no history exam. How do you learn about things like slavery, if our school system shrugs off history?
Unmentioned is the study of cultures. I was blessed by one of the country’s then two high school anthropology courses and went on to major in the subject in college. It has had a big effect not only on my view of things but my journalistic work, where I find culture playing a larger role than is typical in the field. There are some striking exceptions – like journalist Colin Woodard’s excellent cultural analysis of our land, American Nations, but on the whole culture is ignored because it’s just there and not “news.”
Teach kids about cultures. If you let diversity introduce itself to the young as just another teen problem, you are contributing to the problem. We need courses for the young on cultures that not only educate them as to the nature of the world, but also encourage them by a positive recounting of their own culture.
Reciprocal liberty – This concept – I can’t have my liberty if you don’t have yours – was favored by the early Quakers and helped them get along with other people such as the Germans and native Americans. Instead of forcing people to take your views – like the anti-abortiion movement – you accept the complexity of life and get along with those who think differently.
Our differences cause problems because of the way we handle them, not because we’re all that different. A good starting point is to celebrate the varieties of human existence and not just treat them as a problem we can’t resolve.
