During a wide ranging conversation some days back with a few white friends spurred by our past Martin Luther King Holiday, an interesting comment was made. When we were talking about the Civil Rights Movement here in the United States, and the time that has since passed, one person thought that some minority groups still believe they are inferior.
I thought that was a funny observation, but after the conversation ran its course, I understood how and why the comment was formed. It is possible many who feel this way will take those beliefs feelings to their graves. We can make speeches, conduct marches, hold rallies, and pass laws. What we can not do is change the mindset of people most affected by these limiting beliefs.
It is my understanding that Share Cropping was ‘created’ when it became obvious that newly freed slaves were not emotionally or financially equipped to leave their old lives behind and go out into a mostly foreign world and create new lives. Newly freed Americans who knew little or nothing of life as independent persons. People who could go anywhere and do anything, did what most of us would do in the same situation. They reached out for the closest life to life before emancipation. It was a bad choice with little chance of success, but it was comfortable.
For any people having family members who were once not free to make their own choices about their lives, is a hard to understand those choices. For some people whose forbearers lived in those circumstances, life today is not too far removed from those times in their minds eye. Some of the older people alive today have almost firsthand knowledge of what life was like in those days. They were raised with limiting thoughts and feelings around them each and every moment. They were or are people not to likely to change their thinking.
Some more recent peoples coming to the United States feel as if they are shut out of main stream culture for other reasons. They may feel others think they are not ‘American’ enough by the standards of those around them. Some over compensate by going overboard on American culture. Others live deep within their old culture, or whatever adaptations of it exist around them in the United States. Others do their best to become part of American Mainstream as best they can.
Living apart from what some non-white Americans perceive as American Mainstream Culture, from my perspective is their view of American Mainstream culture does not exist anywhere other than the eyes of the beholder. American Mainstream, sometimes thought of as ‘White Culture’ as some view it, is no more a cohesive group than people living above the Arctic circle with those living in the Amazon Rain Forests. Religion, perception, politics, nationality, and economics continue to fracture and reinvent the American Mainstream.
Not being outside of the ‘American Mainstream’, I can only give my impression of what it is like on the inside. I believe there is not much difference between being inside the American Mainstream and looking in at American Mainstream from a perceived outside view. Imagine living in New York, or any densely populated city with most of the population living somewhere between self sufficient and wealthy. Whatever city picked must have mass transportation as the major form of commute. Now place yourself in that population going and coming from work, shopping, and generally living in that city.
People appear to be insensitive, blunt, rude, all socially derogative behaviors one sees in a large city. That to me is a snapshot view of the American Mainstream. If you feel you are not part of the Mainstream, you probably are. If you feel like people ignore you, they probably do. If you feel that people are willing to take advantage of you, they probably do. Everything anyone considers roadblocks to joining ‘Mainstream America’ and their trying to be a part of it is likely true. Welcome to Mainstream America, you are likely experiencing life in the primordial plasma of the American Dream.
If you want to change Mainstream America, you have to get off the sidelines and join in. You can help shape the culture, thinking, and mannerisms of your community. You have to be willing to give of yourself for that to happen though. Programs all over your community need your help, and not just your money. If you don’t jump in make changes, don’t expect for change to happen. Join in and be an active part of the American Mainstream.
