(Shutterstock)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to hang out with people who are like you. There is nothing wrong with wanting to live near them, work with them, and party with them.
The problems start when the similarity is a stark, flat-out category with a history of larger discrimination, and people try to legislate their own preference into federal law, institutional policy, cultural norms, or corporate practice.
There are, it seems, rather a lot of White Americans who only want to hang out with other White Americans. There are a lot of Christian Americans who only want to hang out with, and have their children educated by, other Christians. My gut reaction is to call this bigotry. Yet I crave, and seek out, the company of people who read, who think deeply, who have lively imaginations and are curious about the world. Sometimes they have been of my own race and religious background; one woman was a Black Buddhist; a likeminded man was a Sri Lankan Hindu. My husband looks for these sorts of people, too—plus he loves his annual trip to Comic Con, because finally there are people, unlike his wife, with whom he can quote Star Trek episodes verbatim.
Along with this craving of likeness, we both value—God, dare I say the word?—diversity. My best friend rarely reads, and when she does finish a book, it is not likely to be one I will borrow. My favorites, pressed upon her, she loathed. Some of the best life advice I ever received came from two people who did not finish high school. Curiosity and flights of imagination made my mother nervous, yet I treasured her company.
In the public sphere, though, diversity has been evangelized in ways that backfired, wasted money, further exploited minorities, and made those forced to take the workshops feel judged and coerced. Because I agreed with what was being preached, I failed to fully register these consequences—until it was too late. We could have done a lot better, used a lot more common sense, practiced what we were preaching instead of labeling and bureaucratizing it.
Now society has flipped, and we are the ones who cannot speak freely, lest we trigger an attack. Believing we occupy the moral high ground is a private consolation with no public relevance, as those who would attack us think the same of themselves. It is hard for all of us not to take these divisions a bit too personally, because our reactions were formed on asphalt playgrounds. Other kids shut us out of their games or yelled taunting insults. Feeling bullied, mocked, or left out has stung ever since.
And so the nation swings back and forth, one worldview kicking the other aside, then being kicked away by the return of the other. The real question is, why do we think in such big-yet-narrow categories? What difference does race even make, in how well you can talk to someone and feel a kinship of values and ideas? Why is someone not being Christian a barrier, when Jesus’s whole point was to include sinners and sex workers and tax collectors? And why such a prurient interest in the genders and sex lives of strangers? Such narrow and absurd biases, elevated to rule a giant and once-idealistic country. It is like going on a dating website and announcing that you are looking only for Geminis, and any Gemini will do.
Yes, humans are taught to hate. But humans are also lazy, and race and religion are easy sorting hats. Race is visible (and a scandal when concealed). And religion seems such a virtuous filter, a way to sound godly as you write off whole swaths of strangers. But I would be far happier hanging out with a group of variously colored people who read the same sorts of books, spend their leisure time in similar ways, and crack the same kinds of jokes, than in a random group of White people. In the first instance, conversation will flow fast and easy. In the second, I will sit there, shy and glum, until I figure out how to strike up an acquaintance with one of them.
Taking comfort in similarity is a human trait, probably wired in to expedite survival but also a matter of simple convenience. Surrounded by people like yourself, you do not need to keep explaining, or arguing. And feeling the need to bolster and echo one’s value system, especially in a time when values are clashing or nebulous, makes good sense. But Yay! We are all White now!—or all Christian now, or all cisgender heterosexuals or all Trump Republicans—does not carry you far. Nor does Yay! We are all coastal-elite liberals who were right all along! Somehow we need to distinguish between our private categories of comfort and the hodgepodge that is vital to a country this big.
We also need to scrutinize our own biases—not in the preachy, scolding racism workshop way, but in a relaxed fashion, intrigued to figure out what we really feel instead of relying on old shorthand. I used to grumble to my husband that a good friend of ours, a White guy, was racist, but when we looked closely, what he was yearning for had nothing to do with race at all. He was a culturist, comforted by rules, customs, and tradition; vehemently in favor of formality, politeness, discretion, and a single standardized language with grammar adhered to by all. Some of his opinions sounded racist, because they arose in a racialized context. I am not sure he even realized the difference himself. But give him the choice between sharing a hotel room with Sidney Poitier and a White Jerry Springer Show guest, and he will not hesitate for half a second before choosing the Black guy.
Another friend, I think is a bit racist. Not because she thinks Whiteness superior, but because I suspect she lands somewhere on the autism spectrum and does not have the social skills necessary to communicate easily, and feel comfortable, with someone noticeably different. She shows the same discomfort upon meeting a stranger of her own race, but she does not seem aware of this, because other races have become a convenient repository for all that discomfort.
My verdict? She should live among her own. Whoever she thinks of as her own. If race is her hard-and-fast category, and she cannot bend her mind to the next level and think about personality or background or values, then fine. She will have an easier time of it finding a bastion of Whiteness than many of us have finding our tribe. Which might be mystery-lovers or scuba divers or rebellious artists or poodle lovers or vodou practitioners. Once I would have insisted that everyone learn to cherish difference. Now I find myself saying, “Settle where you are comfortable. If you crave the stimulus and insight that comes from people far outside your tribe, seek it. If the prospect alarms you, stay cozy.”
Cozy enough that you feel no need to legislate your comfort or demean (let alone deport) those who fall outside its boundaries.
Read more by Jeannette Cooperman here.
