Divided Communities – Part I

I’ve been thinking of this for a very long time. Mainly because I have worked with the context of the ideas and problems. And then I thought long and hard about what made the problem in the first place, and how to fully describe what the condition is that defines the problem, and finally what to do about it.

Clearly the problem is a barrier to forward progress. To what you ask? Well, to building strong, viable communities.

And the barrier you ask? My answer is ‘cultural divisions’.

In the old days, say the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, American society would have been divided by class. People would say, Oh No! But deep inside they would say, Oh Yes!

Class distinctions were loosely arranged by family income, value of home, neighborhood in which you lived, wardrobe, and social activities at the cotillions, debutante balls, country club and the ‘right’ church. Everyone knew who was hoity toity and who was not.

The Middle Class lived in clean, neat homes on nice tree lined streets. The houses were modest and right-sized; not too big, and not too small. They had a car in the driveway and took vacations once each year. They attended church and were involved with the PTA and maybe another charity or two in the community. They read the newspaper daily and were up on what was happening in town. And their incomes were steady and sufficient to support their lifestyle without too much worry. They planned and put money aside for college educations for the kids and retirement for the parents. It was an orderly life.

The lower class struggled with small incomes or jobs that were on-again, off-again. They lived in small, dingy homes in poor neighborhoods. Often the streets were untidy with broken curbs, weeds in the cracks of the sidewalks, potholes in the street surfaces, and shabby local stores and shops. It was worn and shabby, the neighborhood. This class never had enough money from their hard toiling jobs to pay the doctor, buy shoes, go to the dentist and save anything for retirement or education for the kids. They lived day to day and paycheck to paycheck. No wonder their homes and neighborhoods grew shabby. Clean indoors, but shabby and well worn.

The upper class knew who they were and so did everyone else. They drove shiny new cars and certainly had two per household if not more. Their homes were large and ostentatious. Well manicured lawns and shrubs were ever present. Social life buzzed around the home and night life tinkled with glee often within their homes. These folks owned the stores, shops, shopping centers, medical centers and factories in town. If they didn’t work, they lived lives of comfort and ease with frequent golf outings, nightlife gatherings, and lovely trips all over the country and globe.

Communities were divided into classes based on economic status more than anything else. Of course over the generations other distinctions arose from time to time to further divided the communities into groups and sub groups, and maybe even sub-sub-groups. These distinctions mainly focused on native culture or nationality among the many immigrant groupings. Hungarian, Italian, Irish, German, Scandinavian, South American, French, Middle Eastern – whatever it was, it provided a short hand means of categorizing another human being and separating them from the main line of society.

Of course religion became a handy distinction as well. Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu – you name it and it became the identifier.

Global news went a long way as well. The first World War drew lines of different nationalities and those people related to one side or the other – imagined or actual – made for hotly debated gatherings at the local bar or coffee shop to say nothing about churches. By the second World War the line separating Germans from the rest of the world was well established. Then Japanese barriers became well defined as well. Finer distinctions became evident as well as Mussolini fascists began to segregate Italians by ideology. Later, when the war was settled and peace was engineered globally, the Cold War began and scarred human relationships for generations to come. Communist? Democracy lover? Tribalist?

The arguments then settled into liberal or conservative or middle of the roader apologist. Nothing was quite right throughout these eras except among those who thought similarly.

But then communities were not automatically segregated except by race. And in America race was a biggie in the segregation department! Holy Cow! We stubbornly ignored it but lived stringently by it for decades and decades, before, during and forever after the Civil War.

Americans are quite aware of their segregation and separatist attitudes. So much so it has become a culture of division within our self satisfied culture of freedom. And therein lays the rub of it all. How can we have a culture of freedom and a culture of division at the same time? Moreover, how can we accept this and still believe in communities of diversity and comity?

Well, this is what I want to talk about. America has its problems. Some are small and soft and can be ignored a while longer while we work on larger issues. But eventually all problems need to be addressed if we expect our communities to be whole and healthy.

A community is a gathering of families living in close proximity and sharing the activities of life – making families, making a living, building households, planning healthy futures, celebrating life and death in meaningful fashion, supporting spiritual lives however we can and accepting the differences among us in such enterprises. We learn about each other, enjoy each other, and celebrate our differences and enrichment, not divisions.

Today in America of 2016 we have major divisions among immigrants, Hispanics, African Americans, Whites, people of European backgrounds, and religion. Currently the most notable division is among Muslims and non-Muslims.

And immigrant divisions is mostly about legal or illegal immigrants. Once settled, of course, we will most likely continue on with the separation by immigrant versus native populations when in truth we are all immigrants unless we somehow are solidly related to the native American population who were here before all the rest of us!

Here’s the thing. We need to focus on what unites us. Focus on that. Do not even think how we are different. We will find much to label in that department. No; instead focus on how we are the same. We will find much to label in this department, and most of it will be comforting. Using that as a wellspring into the future, we can build a future together, a future that allows and accepts the many differences we don’t share.

And that’s OK. That’s the factor that enriches the lives we share in our community. It is what makes us strong. So we need to do this. Now. Stop wasting time.

I’ll talk more of this in coming days. This is important because we all likely live in communities that are struggling with many problems that never seem to get repaired because of differences in the face of many shared characteristics. What a shame we waste such energy on non-productive habits.

In America no person is better than another person unless we make it so. And that is the problem, isn’t it? We fall too easily for feeling we are better than another person until we realize all too late that we have forced the ‘lessers among us’ to do the same for their neighbors until we have a super class of the least among us.

Too bad. We are all the same really. The sooner we realize this the better we will be. And the better able we will be to solve so many pressing problems that have become barriers to our future lives together.

More later.

September 15, 2016