Cultures Collide

Not long ago, several of us plopped down at a table to share a meal together. This is nothing unusual for we often cook and share meals together, though some of us who lack culinary capabilities sit and watch and provide moral support; I'm quickly placed on stirring duty. And as is typical, conversation thrives especially regarding social issues and dreams of better lives for our neighbors. The discussion on this particular day struck me as unique (again, not unusual). Racial discrimination.

Some of us live in racially diverse areas, some work on racially diverse job sites. Some of us work one part of our job in diversity and the other chunk in ethnocentricity. Some of us live in places full of uniformity... where we provide the diversity, just to clarify - whites in a black neighborhood. So the conversation of skin color yoked us together.

As we were chatting, someone divulged their conversation with an black friend who informed her of the subtle differences our skin color affords each of us. Where I, a white guy, may be able to wander the city streets naked without a second thought, this black woman cannot enter a grocery store in sweats without being assumed, spoken to, and treated as a recipient of welfare or food stamps, regardless of income or social status. Her testimony exposes the ignorance of the upper classes. "It is essential for black people to chose their attire intelligently everywhere everyday," quoted my friend (something to that effect).

So when I was invited to join some of our black neighbors this week to accompany them to a court hearing, I walked into a new culture. I've spent plenty of time as a minority and the plenty of time around other ethnicities. I'm not terribly uncomfortable away from people like me; in fact I generally prefer it. But this was a culture I had yet to willing walk into. I loved it. The whole day taught me about patience, reminded me of my inadequacy, and excited me to know and love people where they are (and hopefully they'll be so kind to do the same for me).

I, like my new friends, have been ultimately shaped by our respective cultures. Where my education system taught me how to write checks, prepare a resume, and work hard to provide for myself and family in a coherent, structured, systematic organization, my friends' and neighbors' education system has encouraged them to live for the moment, fulfill the now, and survive in an urban jungle of chaos. At the end of the day, I realized how different our means may be, but eerily similar our goals coincide. Cultures clash but dreams do not differ.