Tolerance

As many do, I was reading some of the news highlights on Yahoo’s main page today, and I came across one that I thought was interesting. It was about how France is putting forth a bill to ban full Muslim veils. The draft of the legislation reads as follows; "No one may, in spaces open to the public and on public streets, wear a garment or an accessory that has the effect of hiding the face”. President Nicolas Sarkozy opened the door to a possible ban in June, telling a parliament session in Versailles that such dress "is not welcome" in France.

The article says that in France there is an estimated 5 million Muslims, the largest such population in Western Europe. This boggles my mind. How can a country that prides itself on openness and acceptance do such a thing? Then again it is not just France. As much as I would like to make this a France roast I can’t in good conscience neglect my own country and self in such shenanigans. If anyone wants to cover their face for any reason, let them. If you wear a ski mask in a bank that might be a bad idea, but is it not appropriate to wear it when you go skiing? The whole reason Muslims wear the veils are to hide their faces in public! It’s like taking a gun away from a police officer because he might shoot a bad guy packing heat. That’s what it’s for! Also I am sure there are some unfortunate looking ladies wearing those veils. It’s just like the whole fantasy of everyone being naked. Sure 5% of them would be fun to look at, but the other 95% of the population would burn holes into my retinas. It’s better to cover it all up. Leave something to the imagination.

That’s enough on the particular case of the veils. That’s not why I wanted to write this in the first place. It is just an example of the human nature and its desire to group together and shun others out of their group, AKA racism and discrimination. When I was in high school there were not too many “minorities” at the school I went to. Out of the 1,000 or so kids only about 5 of them were not Caucasian. They blended in pretty well and all had some good friends. The school was no example of heaven mind you. There were the groups: ‘goths’, ‘tree huggers’, ‘nerds’ (mine), ‘sport jocks’, ‘cheerleaders’, ‘loaners’ and of course the ‘druggies’. For reasons I still don’t understand, I liked to mix in with all of the groups (never did drugs mind you). I had a least one friend in each of those groups outside of my home base of nerdom. It was great. Very few did that though. Years later I was talking to my friend Sarah and she was explaining her high school to me. She grew up in Chula Vista, CA where the mix of races was a bit more populated than 5 total. She told me that at lunch time the cafeteria was divided (naturally) into countries; China, Africa, America, and Mexico. This shocked me. I had no idea it would be like that. Yes I was that ignorant. But now it is starting to makes sense to me. I will explain. Any group of people that has come together under the pretense of being “like minded” was hard enough for me to deal with when they lash out at others that are not so “like minded”. Now I was being told that this still happens under the pretense of being “like bodied/culture”. So here is the question. To help stop/minimize racism and discrimination should we all try to be “like minded” and have the same culture and just try to ignore our physical differences? I say no. The answer will never be for us all to be like minded. I like that there are different cultures out there in the world. I like that most of those cultures are available to me in the city I live in. That does not mean that I like everything that each culture has to offer (e.g. food, music, and entertainment) but I like that I can learn and try new things that I did not grow up with.  And despite what I want that would never happen anyway. This is where I start to make sense of this. Most of us agree that discrimination and racism are bad. So let’s say that there is a magic button that we could push that removes the part of the brain that makes us want to stay around people that look like us and have the same culture. Would we then all be able to hang out with each other without any pre-attached labels (e.g. color of skin, gender, economic status) placed upon us? Nope. We would end up looking like my old high school. We would find ways to set each other apart. We would base it on what you are good at, how good looking you are, and what interest you have. No matter what we do there will always be groups. To me that is not the problem. The problem is when we exclude people from the group or try and force people to be a certain way in order to be in the group. This goes down the line. The church is super guilty of doing this throughout history as well as just about any other group of people. The truth is; each and every one of us is different. Don’t try to fit in, don’t try to make others fit in, be true to yourself and tolerate others that rub you the wrong way. When we place people in containers you miss out on what makes that person unique. You can get through life that way, but life is so much more enjoyable when you take the chance and get to know who that person really is. Does that mean you have to like everyone? Does that mean you will like everyone? No. But if we all respected and loved everyone and gave them the benefit of the doubt we could all live lives that are more productive beneficial to us all.

So far nothing I have said is groundbreaking or new, but if there is one aspect of my ideas that I have not heard somewhere else it is this: one major setback in the fight against discrimination is the existence of stereotypes. We have all had that experience on the freeway when you see a car far off and think to yourself “I bet the driver of that car is a _______” and more often than not you are right in your assumption. It is hard to act like everyone is unique and special when so often when we group people into stereotypes we are rewarded with being correct in our estimation of their attitude and or aspect of their said stereotype. Here is my solution, and I hinted at it in my previous paragraph. Each of us needs to hold true to our own self and try to be as unique as possible. Fight to not be a stereotype. At least be sure that if you end up looking like a member of a stereotype you are doing it for the right reasons. Not just because everyone else like you is doing it. I am not a Christian because my family raised me that way. I am a Christian because when I searched out God with all my heart I found Him. People lump me into the group that is “ignorant prep who is just regurgitating what he was taught as a child.” That could not be further from the truth. Everything I believe in is because I tested and searched it out on my own. I like minivans. The reason I didn’t get a minivan last time I was shopping for a car is because how many single, normal men drive around minivans. So I went with the SUV. I should have followed my heart and gone with the van. I urge you to do the same. Be true to your heart that is, not buy a minivan. If we all do that, we will less and less fall into the trap of being a ‘by the book stereotype’. God loves variety, just look at all of the plants and animals He created. He does not want a bunch of robots, He wants you to be yourself. When being yourself I think it is important to not bring any harm unto others. That’s why we need laws. But for the most part be yourself and try and better yourself though learning and trying new things, loving other people and their uniqueness as you do it. Tolerate others, accept new people into your circle of friends, and try not to be a cookie cutter person so that we all don’t get sucked into the death that is a stereotype fulfilled. I understand that some of you smart readers might realize that I am telling you to all be different like me and that in its self is a little bit of an oxymoron, but as long as you are different than me being different than you I think we will all be ok.