I find it somewhat curious… rather annoying… and totally distasteful. All this anger at immigrants (or the possibility of immigrants). Let’s lock those other people up. Let’s put them in some dark corner of our city. Let’s build a wall – maybe even two or three! – to keep them out.
All the while, today’s world is so connected. Your grocery store. My clothing store. YouTube. The news. Photos. People. So much connection.
Yet so much suspicion and distaste – even hatred – for those who are different.
Here’s a postcard from my French cousin Fab and her partner husband Jean-Claude. The postcard comes from the Memorial of the Camp des Milles. This postcard proclaims, “Understand in order to agitate.”
Here’s the original version as seen on the postcard. Scroll down for the English translation.
Ton christ est juif
Ta voiture est japonaise
Ton couscous est algerin
Ta démocratie est grecque
Ton cafe est bresilien
Ton chianti est italien
Et tu reproches a ton voisin d’être un étranger…
Your christ is jewish
Your car is japanese
Your couscous is algerian
Your democracy is greek
Your coffee is brazilian
Your chianti is italian
And you reproach your neighbor because s/he is a stranger
A tribe can be wonderful. Just read Seth Godin’s book of that name. Think about what we want to do with donors – build a tribe that cares. Think about movements like social justice – building a tribe that will act together for good.
Tribes can be so marvelous and special and extraordinary and helpful and useful and great agents of change.
And tribes can be so awful, so disgusting, so vicious, so harmful, so hurtful. I fight those tribes. I want them gone gone gone.
Which tribes do you belong to? Which tribes do you avoid – and even fight?
P.S. An important article about change in U.S. demographics (in a decade or so, whites will be the minority). But who continues to seemingly control the world?