PC?

In Manhattan, I was a minority. There were people of every flavor in school, and there wasn't a majority of any one group. My elementary school was in Greenwich Village. I believe they did a very good job of keeping us together as a group. We are all one people. Our Principal was Japanese. My first best friend was from Malta. I had friends who were black, white, Asian, Hispanic and all manner of mixes. Ethnic background really was a non-issue. I enjoyed the differences. Learning about my friends and their families, their cultures, helped me to learn about myself. I think that's why Roots affected me so deeply. My young mind couldn't understand how one group of people could treat another group so badly.

Moving to rural New Jersey was a shocking change for me. My school there was almost all white. There were maybe two or three black kids in the whole school. That was it. I recall a conversation with a business associate of my step-father's who argued with me about the superiority of whites. What an asshole!! I was just a kid. I remember angry frustrated tears because I couldn't believe this guy was serious. I was, indeed, living in a different world.

Racism is not dead in America. I think we should just all admit it out loud. There are veiled references to "a certain element." For a time in my teens I lost myself and said racist comments to fit in. I regret it deeply. It wasn't me, and it isn't me now. Once in high school, a kid I later became really good friends with came up to me and whispered "Jew" in my face. I said "so?" Later he apologized. I know many very good people who are racist and speak poorly of certain groups quite openly. It's hard to mesh their goodness with the hateful things that they sometimes spew. They know I don't like it and try to keep it at bay when I'm around. Here in Sioux City the racism is towards the Mexican immigrants that have moved into this area in large numbers. Some folks here are quite open about their hostility, and it surprises me that they don't even try to hide their feelings. It's a turn off, actually.

There is so much that we miss by being separated as groups. Let's face it, segregation is alive and kicking in today's America. Not legally, but by choice now. The funny thing is that when we mix it up, people get along quite well. Relationships one-on-one are fine. When my oldest son started school in the middle of the year last year it was the Mexican kids who welcomed him. They invited him to sit with them at lunch and started to teach him Spanish. I was a little sad when my son's inevitable migration to the white kids happened. Luckily, he still maintains friendships with some of those Mexican kids. I hope he keeps them as friends forever. My husband lost his job in Pennsylvania and got a job closer to New York. He had trouble getting along with some of the guys in the Pennsylvania workplace. I don't blame him. Some of those guys were close-minded idiots, not worth the time or effort that friendship takes. I was happy when he came home from the New York job and told me that most of the guys were immigrants who worked there. I knew he would make friends, good friends. And he did. Still keeps in touch to this day.

There is so much to respect about people who move here from another country. I have had a hard time adjusting to a new state much less a whole new country. At least I know the language here. I am in my homeland. I sometimes imagine what it would be like to just hop on a boat or a plane and head for a world where I have no reference. To not know the language or the customs. Terrifying.

These people deserve our respect. At the very least we can acknowledge their desire to better their lives and the lives of their families. I would do the same if I were in their shoes. We were lucky to have been born in America. Pull the arm on the slot machine of life and we could have been born in Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, or Croatia. We could have been born girls in Iran. We could be a motherless child born in Africa; an untouchable in India. We could have been parents trying to save their children from being pressed into service with gangs of guerrillas. At some point, my ancestors came over on boats from Russia and Romania and lived in Jewish enclaves in New York. They worked and learned and carved out a life here and added something wonderful to America, just as every immigrant group has over time. Would America be the same without pizza, or Irish pubs or bagels?

I find e-mails about speaking English offensive. I don't like the jokes about pushing 1 for English and pushing 2 for learn how to speak English. I'm not reinventing the wheel here; all of this has been said before, but I fervently believe that we are enriched by learning about people from other cultures. If we only surround ourselves with people who are exactly like we are . . . well, where is the challenge? How are we to learn anything new? I would like to see more integration. I would like to see thoughtful mixing. We will only be enriched by our differences. I wish everyone had the chance that I did as a child: to have dinner with a Vietnamese friend or to visit a friend who lived in the projects. It was wonderful to experience the cultural street fairs that happened in my old neighborhood. The Jamaican fair, where I loved to listen to the steel drums and eat the beef patties. The Polish fairs, with their beautifully painted wooden eggs and nesting dolls and the pierogies served in paper cones dripping with butter. The Puerto Rican Day parade with the lively dancing and the shaved snow cones, where I thought the women were the most beautiful I had ever seen. They looked like tropical princesses. I wanted to be just like them. Their language was musical and mysterious to my ears. I felt so bland. Just a regular white kid. I wanted to be exotic.

I am not afraid of people who are different from me. My exposure as a kid taught me that people are people no matter what. I think that a lot of white people are afraid; people who live in situations that insulate them from other cultures. History has shown that most immigrant populations pull themselves out of poverty and segregation and assimilate into our culture with a status of their own. The Irish, the Jews, the Asians, and now I think the black population is moving in that direction as well. Our President is black, the most powerful woman in media (Oprah), many major sports figures, and too many entertainers to even mention. While things have gotten better, in regular everyday America we have work to do.

Chris Matthews "blundered" this week. He said he forgot that Obama was black during his State of the Union speech. I wasn't offended. I know what he meant. For a moment Obama's race wasn't an issue; wasn't the thing that Chris Matthews saw first. The color didn't matter. He was just a man working for change against impossible odds. Of course, the PC police are all over Chris Matthews now. I sincerely hope he sticks up for himself.