I worked for the Adult Entertainment business in Minneapolis for different independent business owners. In my job, I faced people in wild situations of drug and alcohol abuse, gangs, prostitution, theft, abnormal sexuality, and mental health issues. The adult underworld gave me many opportunities to study the diversity of behavioral deviances in the community. For some time, I worked as a night clerk for loss prevention and security in adult bookstores and exotic dancing establishments. All of this is normal for a person who has seen the same behaviors inside the judicial system.
Diversity taught me that each person’s decision affects everybody. America is a crucible of multicultural values and emotional IQ’s. I believe America should next focus on restructuring education so all students have the critical and creative thinking skills needed for the changing American culture.
People need to expand their awareness of social influences and connections people have with one another. Scholars must use everyone’s stories of history as “the mirror,” for choosing guidance from the past, or educating the future generations for a unified, national culture of modern Americans.
I and other people grew up learning the dominant classes use racism as a basic tool for diverting the attention of the disadvantaged from social inequality. The disadvantaged and the uneducated are unaware of the freedoms to overpower their oppressors from their social positions. Education at Metro State expanded my conscientious stage of critical thinking so I can interact with new ideas taught and exchanged with me from other cultures.
I learned a lot by interacting with my neighbors and the public. First, people wanting to lead an educational path must face the unknown, and break away from the mediocre learning methods taught in traditional institutions of learning. Second, people can learn and teach without overstepping the boundaries of dishonoring the individual’s intimacy and privacy. Third, a student can learn from and educate other cultures using their knowledge of history and languages. Languages bring new perspectives for a clearer understanding of American history and cultural diversity. Differences aside, people are the same everywhere and there is a need to enlighten ourselves.
America needs people to work for a new community leadership and teaching the educationally disadvantaged to make a spiritual transformation through nontraditional, multi-cultural education. Diversity taught me that everyone faces the same problems, but each culture has their way of resolving problems, some work and some do not. People need to have human contact, which antisocial behaviors like racism and prejudices builds walls between cultures.
Educating people of the social inequality reduces racism and the fighting among one another, like marionettes controlled by their oppressors. Would multicultural and personality trait education improve the lives of people in America? Do people ever forget their reality built on negative experiences, culture, values, or prejudices? Without good communication skills, people will not understand the ideas of important historical and traditional values guarded by society.
People take for granted of overlooking the simplistic method of asking questions about the causes of social problems people perpetuate in their behavior. Cross-cultural education and socialization with other cultures will help people understand in mind of their personal, historical, social perspectives of likenesses and differences. People must use everyone’s stories of history as “the mirror,” for choosing guidance from the past, or educating the future generations for a unified, national culture of Americans.
Many people fear of losing their cultural identity as naturalized Americans, which the cultural ignorance projects onto others as a social inequality in the community. The fear brings social inequity of racism and ethnocentrism into the dominant culture. The result of ethnocentrism excludes people from understanding other cultures because of their ignorance of their own cultural history, as well as the cultures of the scapegoat races. This happened when in our American history the English and other “white” Europeans were the dominant race, in which the Caucasian population reduces every year with some panic. The media contributes to the arising ignorance and racial tension among the exclusive, ethnic societies in the community.
However, people cannot escape the racist terminology or political correctness because racism creeps into everybody’s life. Is calling a person or a group racist a form of racism? Why do people call somebody a racist when that person may be the same race, or do not have the power to oppress the person doing the labeling? I understand that racism is the systematic, institutionalized mistreatment of a group of people because of their racial heritage. Racism roots itself in the social inequalities exploited by the privileged, powerful oppressors of controlling the misperceived power over the disadvantaged. Who are the undefined oppressors?
Racism exists within the cultural diversity, but people must learn to get along in the neighborhood. In Minnesota, there is a misunderstood term for internalized racism called “Minnesota Nice.” I thought that this is a disparaging phrase meaning the person curbs the internalized opinions about another and tolerating their individuality.
However, people mind their manners in public, but our society gradually hides itself in privacy. I believe society is killing itself with the overuse and practice of “political correctness.” The well-meaning practice of sensitivity and courtesy expanded beyond helpfulness and it is turning into a harmful practice. Thus, the media exploits political correctness for shock value and it is harmful to the well-being of our society. Cable television airs politically offensive shows using stereotyped ethnic behaviors, which teaches the next generation that racism exist and it is to be laughed at the expense of others.
People need to meet their neighbors and elected officials because the problem now is that America is becoming an individualist society—antisocial with the use of the Internet, debit cards, and wireless communications. We need to get along if anyone wants to get ahead. My thoughts about multiculturalism and its issues are never ending, because people generalize their judgment of others out of fear and ignorance.
I believe that races, social classes, and education is not a barrier for a better world, but becoming a xenophobic society may be the new barrier. Individualism is a development the educated person confronts when he or she compares and tries to understand it through new, anthropological lenses. Each person must have the optimism in accepting everything in front of them and enjoy the full human experience of the American diversity offered by multicultural education. I find that diversity is the key to individual freedoms, but it also traps the person to conform to the norms of society.
