Posted by
Aaron Miller on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 4:00:00 PM
Eric Holder's
misunderstanding of race relations is typical of the liberals I've known. He sees people gravitating toward their own races when socializing as evidence of unwillingness to meet and learn about each other. This misunderstanding is linked to the liberal ideal of multiculturalism... the idea that culture is ultimately whimsical, almost aesthetic, and that all persons should strive to learn about and be at peace with all cultures.
More often than not, race and culture are linked. Nobody belongs to a culture
because of skin color, but physical traits in combination with clothes usually do hint at a person's culture.
If a discussion of race does not include discussion of culture, then it is not an honest discussion. Race relations are the way they are because of cultural differences.
By the way, if you are by some miracle oblivious to the fact that American blacks have a subculture of their own, then I suggest listening to Martin Lawrence, Chris Tucker, Dave Chappelle, Richard Pryor, or any other black comedian. Not all blacks are part of that subculture, but those of the culture do associate it with skin color. Anyway...
Contrary to the multiculturalism dogma, there's nothing wrong with being comfortable in your own culture and preferring to spend most of your time with others of that culture. Like is drawn to like -- it's human nature. It might be problematic at times, but that basic desire to be with someone similar to yourself is perfectly innocent and even good.
In fact, it's love. Love is fundamentally about togetherness: the desire to be together, the will to be together, actions taken to bring people together, etc. It's easier to be together with, to love, someone with whom you share likes and dislikes, beliefs and goals, backgrounds and expectations, and so forth. Certainly, each of us should strive to love those with whom we have little in common. But how do we do so? By finding or creating commonalities.
Simply learning about our differences does not bring us together. If I'm into fishing and you're into cars, is discussion of those passtimes sure to bring us closer? Of course not. We'll know more about each other, but we might not be sharing anything. If an Amazon tribesman tells you his son is the result of killing a man from a neighboring tribe, stealing that man's wife and raping the woman before she accepted her fate, is that knowledge -- insightful to his tribal culture, though it may be -- necessarily friendly bonding? Of course not.
People of a particular race can be avoided unreasonably, due to hate, mistrust, or whatnot. But assumptions of such motives are often unfounded and themselves divisive.
Actor Morgan Freeman had it right when he said that the path to improved race relations is to stop bringing it up.
I'm currently taking a Spanish class at a local community college here in Houston. My class includes several students from Nepal, two students from Iran, and several black students... two of which are from New Orleans. Guess what? Despite regularly interacting with other students, all the Nepalese students sit together and the Iranians sit together as well. As for the blacks, the five from Houston sit together on one side, the two from New Orleans sit on another side, and the one from a different socioeconomic class sits apart from both groups. As I said before,
culture is at the heart of such behavior. And you know what? It's fine. We all get along and there's no animosity.
It's people like Eric Holder, Barack Obama, and Al Sharpton who cause animosity between races. They divide us into political categories, instead of allowing our cultures to naturally interact and come together through everyday living.