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No more Ms. Nice girl: A call to reflective honesty
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on Thursday, November 20, 2008 (CST)
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 By Emily Langness, editor
I’m becoming a hopeless homebody in my old age (a whopping 24). Traveling just seems to bring out the worst in me. I just want my own bed. I just want my familiar surroundings. I just hate being carted around like livestock.
That’s my attitude when I’m going somewhere without my mind engaged — when I feel forced into it.
That must be close to what some minorities feel in the United States (and across the globe, for that matter). Coming from a young white American, projecting my feelings on an entire people group may seem like the height of arrogance, but everyone is a minority somewhere, and I believe we all share some common experience at a basic level. This is where I can start to make a connection.
On Nov. 12, the International Herald Tribune published an article titled, “Can Europe produce an Obama?” The article explores European attitudes toward minorities, and quotes French journalist Joseph Macé-Scaron, describing French society’s condescension toward minorities. He wrote that patronization results in French minorities being “locked in identities of resentment.”
That was an eye-opening statement for me on a personal level, because my initial attitude toward those of different ethnicities comes dangerously close to patronizing. Feeling guilty as a member of the majority, I try to compensate by saying something gushy like, “Oh, but look at how beautiful your uniqueness makes this country,” when I actually know very little about what makes their culture unique.
Not only is my ignorance insensitive, but so is my denial of what’s right in front of me. Many minorities are minorities because they are displaced from their cultural heritage. To overlook that blaring fact makes me irrelevant at best and demeaning at worst. When you are displaced from your home, it doesn’t help for people to remind you how beautiful it was. It just heightens the ache that no number of platitudes can soothe.
As we end 2008 with a new perspective on the patchwork that is America, let’s reflect on the past and project into the future the aspirations of our present. Let’s talk less and listen more. We have to look both ways before we can know where we are, and I for one could stand to value my neighbors with fewer obligatory niceties and more honest consideration.
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