| HN Mirror

When I immigrated to the US, large city in the Northwest, I was still a kid of 7.

My understanding of troubles between people were that they were the historical norm. My country of birth, and all surrounding countries, have long interesting histories. Real ruins to match! Full of everyone and group vying for dominance with lots of periodic organized killing, at various scales, instigated by cultural waves and royal decree.

Every kind of group conflict over time. No reason to fixate and stew on any one. Certainly not any that “defined” the country. Just lots of mistakes.

No false pristine origin myth to wrap oneself up into! Dear Zeus no! What an odd idea!!

And the trend over hundreds of years clearly was one of steady improvement. Minus short term catastrophes.

So no need to continually revisit any particular mistake, or waste time downplaying one either.

When I arrived in the US, we didn’t have TV at my house. And we never did. So my sheltered historical interests continued to be global.

It’s quite remarkable how free my life was from any impact of US racism. I had heard of Martin Luther King. His memory was universally revered by my American family and wider circle. “Obviously” that little episode of slavery, contrasting with the thousands of years of interminable atrocities that were my context for judging such things, was well on its way out.

We had diverse neighbors, and everyone interacted. Lots of interesting adults taught me new things. I don’t remember anyone as being this or that, they were all just very different people, different looks, backgrounds, ideas. To me that is zen. Fun.

Somehow it took me quite a while to find out there were significant US people who were still quite racist. At age 10, I was confused by a conversation, and a friend told me there were still Americans with bad feelings about black people.

I tried to imagine what someone like that could be like? What would they look like? Why, most of all, why?!? No coherent form came to mind.

In the next few years I caught up on US history, or as we say everywhere else on the planet “current events”.

It was appalling to me that there were still small groups of white supremacists, operating mostly in the dark, That there were still people with quiet prejudices. But “obviously” those things were dying.

Today is absolutely unrecognizable. The level of self-reinforcing garbage just bewilders me.

Everything is argued from the most unworkable extreme. No DEI! (So no consideration for real talent in less easy to find places, or who might need a practical accommodation?) To DEI must be enforced, please sign on to our committees un-nuanced statement of diversity? (So no differences on quotas or approaches are ok?)

And the rest of us, including the diverse in question, left to muddle through all these moving barriers and the hate and depression they feed.

Total madness.

I feel like the US is in a tiny time pressure bottle, and a cultural pressure bottle too, isolated from healthy border contact with neighbors of comparable power. Cut off from most human history.

And the result is utter myopia.

Everyone (who talks loudly) thrashing around reacting to threats real, imagined and manufactured from paranoia or opportunism. In the process, making themselves credible threats to others.

I just feel lucky between my childhood elsewhere, lack of media, and early exposure to wider historical & geographic perspectives, that for a long time I was protected from the poison of US racism. I can tell you, it was a happier place to be.

I got to meet and know my adopted black cousin, along with other diverse people who were part of my amazing new large US family, without any thought of racism. For years.

I remember in my 30’s when I realized Prince was black! It was so ridiculous to just notice that I had to laugh. And then a whole bunch of other artists. Of course some artists struck me immediately as black for whatever reason. But I just didn’t think to classify people that way, for the longest time.