Acceptance, Part 1

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. I decided to take a look at how we accept each other. As a History nerd I wrote my thesis in college about the rise of one particular hate group. It has always interested me how groups like that form. And most importantly how much passion, energy and effort it takes to truly hate someone. But we aren't going to talk about hate groups today, I'll save that for another blog. What I'm thinking about is the term of acceptance. So much has changed since the last century...through the elimination of structural and political prejudice...but we still have to look at ourselves. It seems like acceptance is something that grows slowly. And I have had many conversations about these sorts of topics, and let me tell you everyone has their prejudices. The division between my views to my parents, to my grandparents on race are vastly different. My grandparents lived in a time of segregation. The term ghetto defined ethnic clusters within in a city, not inner city slums. My grandparents were considered "fresh off the boat". On my father's side, my grandmother went through Ellis Island as a French Citizen, my grandfather's parents had just moved to San Francisco from Italy. My grandfather grew up in a time period where he was not considered white because of his Italian roots. My grandfather's sister actually changed their names to be more "American", so they wouldn't be "looked down upon." Looking at them, they looked stereotypically white. Yet a part of them retained that anger of not being "the norm". In response, they did everything they could to become more white, that "pull yourself up from the bootstraps" American mentality was their general rhetoric. It was always hard for them to understand how other ethnic groups had difficulty being accepted, because it was more of "if I could be accepted as a white, why can't you?" The problem was, one, they technically looked white, if you removed them from the Italian Ghetto, no one could argue the blonde, blue eyed kids weren't white, therefore they had an upper hand at acceptance. Secondly, once Italians and even Jewish Americans were accepted as white in our country, they almost quickly forgot what it was like to be not white. And another factor that could be explored is, that dialogue of racial, political and social injustice was just beginning to be talked about, that understanding of others (others could be Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Germans, the Irish, etc.) wasn't there because it wasn't either widely known, or their generation...survivors of the Great Depression just sort of thought every man for themselves, if you don't make it you don't make it. For my parents their youth ran parallel to the Civil Right Movement. They saw it unfold during their most prime and formative learning years. Their social awareness of themselves and the unfair plight of others grew, and that acknowledgement of discrimination and injustice was blazed so much so into their minds, their generation took a stab at stopping it. The Civil Rights Movement was a catalyst to so much more. Half of them went full throttle into various other movements, the new women's movement, the free speech movement, civil rights movement for Native Americans and Mexican Americans, the free love hippy movement, to equal rights in the gay community and anti-discrimination laws like EEO. On the other side, a new rhetoric grew, which historians deemed the "conservative backlash". This was in reaction to the movements that were beginning to turn violent in 1968, the Vietnam war, and almost a disgust to the youth who they felt were leading a wreckless life through free love and drug use. This new dialogue was about bringing Americans back to the basics with a family first mentality. It took storm and politically ruled during most of the 70s and the 80s. Yet, what the two juxtapositions led to was the social term of "tolerance" to help explain how Americans should view racial inequity. And that's what my teachers, products of my parents generation taught my generation about how why we are all different. And for awhile I bought into it. Tolerance of other peoples cultures sounds like a very reasonable thing to preach. Then one day during my studies at Berkeley I started to think about the word tolerance, and I started to despise it. Tolerance, to me, is you're forced to like something. Like, I am going to tolerate my boyfriends obnoxious friend, but I'll never hang out with him on my own, only when I'm forced to, when I'm in situations like group settings, such as school or work. I believe tolerance is the complete opposite of how we should view our society. For me it is more a term of acceptance. Because acceptance is saying, we might look different, eat different believe in different religions, but you're still a likeable person, you're still an interesting person, and you still deserve the same amount as civil liberties as I do, therefore we accept each other.As a teenager my momentous soul searching, self realizing moment was created by the tragedy of 9/11. That was a time when everyone in my high school put aside petty caste differences (the cool kids vs. the jocks vs. the nerds vs. the fill in blank) and we all accepted each other. We all were nice to each other. We came together to do fundraisers and made cards and other various stuff because that day we were all Americans. And that's what I want to leave the beautiful people with today. Is acceptance. Not just on a racial issue, but on a worldly issue. Accept your boyfriends annoying friend, that weird guy at work, a friend who may have chosen a new and very different path in life. Because in the end it makes life a whole lot easier not carrying around built up resentment.