Three Ways of Being Multicultural

The original purpose of this web site was to keep alive the content I'd published on Associated Content. Here is a poem. 

THREE WAYS OF BEING MULTICULTURAL, or ODE TO TAKOMA PARK 

1. 

In this all-White grade school they have an International Festival every May. Mothers go out and buy colored bedsheets and a teacher buys gummed plastic beads to stick on the foreheads of giggling girls. Mrs. Jones has a forehead piece made of real pearls and gold and moonstones on a long string. Sally Jones is a cute little black-haired thing. She looks like a real Indian, quite a sight. (She will never again feel entirely White.) Billy Smith brings things his mother calls chapatis. The children learn: “Indians are weird, eat cow patties, and wrap up in bedsheets so they can’t run or play; and Sally Jones probably is one.” Billy grows up and works for a corporation whose markets extend beyond Billy’s nation. Billy meets an Indian through a corporate merge and can’t figure out why he feels such an urge to giggle like an eight-year-old. 2. This all-White high school has just been sold new, “multicultural” books to read. There is a story about orphans in need who are poor and pitiful and live in Kentucky, one about an English prince, handsome but unlucky, one about a hard-fought championship match between Yankees and Canadians, which the Yanks nat- urally win, because the Canadians lack the Yankees’ champion goalie, who is Black. All other stories come from different directions> and mention only people with more interesting complexions. Reading grades plunge. Students tell parents the reason why they’re not doing well is the stupid new school books, which make them bored. Parents hint at electing a new School Board. Old, all-White school books are quickly exhumed. In the children’s futures it will be assumed anything multicultural is anti-White, anti-Southern, anti-Christian, anti-the-normally-bright, anti-ourselves, and generally no good. 3. In this all-mixed city neighborhood the ethnic majority changes each week. At the grade school the different students speak sixty-three languages,the teachers find. this is not enough, to the principal’s mind, because none of them’s Russian, more’s the pity. Seventy-nine kinds of music are played in the city. Each neighbor brings in something new. At the neighborhood restaurant the menu features different countries every day with music and entertainment to match he entrée. They spend a lot of time on history at school because leaving anyone out is against the rule. Other rules of this neighborhood are: Thou Shalt Grow Flowers, Especally Azaleas. Thou Shalt Talk to People, Especially Strangers. Thou Shalt Wear a Trench Coat, Even to an Evening Party (because fur upsets the trendy and the arty). Thou Shalt Wear Canvas Shoes everywhere (except where thy feet are required to be bare). Thou Shalt Like Folk Music. Or Move Away. Thou Shalt go to Town Meetngs and Have thy Say. And Thou Shalt Walk to the Train Every Day (because the streets are too narrow for a car). Having so much in common, the neighbors found that four out of ten were Black or dark Brown, two were light Brown, one an Orthodox Jew, two were Buddhists, one Catholic, and there were a few Laotian Hmong in the neighborhood somewhere. Many of them found it profitable to share their homes with several different faces. Many a household contained all five races. Many a neighbor, on looking around, saw that his best friend did not look or sound like him at all. No one seems to have found this to be a problem. Everyone likes music, poetry, azaleas, and bikes. So they stopped counting and said: “Don’t keep score. We don’t label. If other people bore us, we ignore them. Difference is fine. It’s all about knowing where to draw the lne Good neighborhoods simply must be exclusive. We choose to exclude those who are abusive of children or animals; those whot hrow litter; who cut down healthy trees; who feel too bitter to talk to strangers; who think that friends must be secret bedmates; who follow trends invented by merchants; who drop ash- es; who peer into the neighbors’ trash; who want to see everyone overdressed; who think buying an overpriced car is the best use for their money; those who are such failures they don’t even try to maintain their azaleas. Letting some people in would lead to strife. We let in those who want to live the good life. Never mind quotas and numbers and stuff. We find ourselves multicultural enough.”