On World Peace and Paradox...

From Yahoo AP News today:

“On NBC's "Meet the Press," also taped Friday and aired Sunday, Clinton told interviewer Tim Russert that the biggest problem confronting the world today is ‘the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity.’”

Wait a minute. “…the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity…” First off, did Clinton actually say that we should focus on our similarities rather than our differences? Second, this illusion he speaks of…

Whoa…I’m way ahead of myself. See, I’m a White child of the 70s and my parents (and TV culture) raised me to believe that, well, we should focus on our similarities rather than our differences. It didn’t matter that Willis and Arnold were Black and Mr. Drummond was White—what mattered was that they were a family (for its time, this show seemed pretty progressive). My well-meaning, liberal, parents told me “Skin color doesn’t matter, we’re all human.” I wonder if the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. influenced them in any way:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

They told me racism is bad, I should treat everybody equally and I should not judge anyone based on color, religion, disability, age, sexual orientation, etc. My dad bought a “Love See No Color” t-shirt from an African American street vendor. I thought I had it figured out.

Until I took women’s studies classes at the local University at the ripe old age of 27 and found out I’m racist because I believe that color doesn’t matter. They accused me (and other’s like me) of thinking of non-White people as invisible. Seriously, somebody brought up the “Love See No Color” thing and outrage insued. Somebody actually said, “That’s just means Whites don’t even see Blacks!”

I can’t begin to relate how tedious and absurd the discussions around race became in these classes. People felt unsafe… a lot. I know this because they kept saing, “I feel really unsafe right now.” People cried and self disclosed. Turned out that everybody was a racist. Well, OK, all the White students. Non-White students didn’t contribute to the discussions because they didn’t want to have to “be a representative for their race.” I too gave up contributing because I didn’t want to be a representative for sanity.

The remedy, we’re told, is to “honor/celebrate diversity.” In fact, whole non-profit organizations have been developed, whole FTE training positions have been hired, and whole divisions in government agencies have been formed to propegate this ideology. We’ve gone from “differences don’t matter” to “differences matter a lot” and we must train people to understand just how different we really are. Though the differences are spun positively (as opposed to the negative stereotypes of days past), I can’t help but experience this strategy as devisive. (Especially since there is one cultural group banned from celebrating its own identiy…or even admitting it has one…).

So now, Clinton identifies the “the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity” as our largest global problem. But then our tax dollars are paying for programs that promote the opposite point of view. The source of the illusion is no mystery; it’s merely an example of ideology run amok.

The truth is, we are all different and the same. We are all human. We are no better or worse any anybody else. And, quite frankly, we need to get over ourselves. The biggest problem facing the global community today? We take ourselves way too seriously.