From a Melting Pot to a Boiling Pot
I am sure many of the readers of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth remember this Coca-Cola commercial. The setting is a reclusive hillside outside of Rome, Italy. Throngs of teenagers from many different cultures stand hand-in-hand, and they begin to sing, “I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony. I’d like to hold it in my arms, and keep it company. [Next verse] I’d like to see the world for once, all standing hand in hand, and hear them echo through the hills, for peace throughout the land.” What an idyllic scene that was! Of course, Coke borrowed the song and rewrote the lyrics to sell their beverages. Who knows how many Cokes were sold as a result!
The USA used to be considered a Melting Pot of ethnicities emigrating to this country from around the world. Ellis Island served as the processing center for these people, and they were greeted with the words of Emma Lazarus’s sonnet, “The New Colossus”: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I light my lamp beside the golden door!”
Our society no longer reflects a Melting Pot. But by no means is this a recent trend. The renowned American sociologist Henry Pratt Fairchild wrote in the early 20th century: “There can be little doubt that race prejudice is the greatest single barrier to assimilation. It is a disgraceful anomaly that the people of the United States, who preach and profess to believe in the doctrine of universal brotherhood, who have given political equality to the negroes, who proclaim all men born equal, should in their lives exemplify the narrowest race prejudice.”
Other examples of the glaring lack of a “Melting Pot” mentality include the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II and the forced deportation of Mexicans during the Eisenhower administration (including many who were American citizens). Invoking my favorite source of information, which I believe to be a dependable source, is Wikipedia. Reviewing the entry on Immigration to the United States, we find some remarkable statements. “The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at further restricting immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, particularly Jews, Italians and Slavs.”
The anti-immigration mindset began to change in the mid-1960s. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 did away with quotas based on national origin. By equalizing immigration policies, the act resulted in new immigration from non-European nations, which changed the ethnic make-up of the United States. In 1970, 60% of immigrants were from Europe; this decreased to 15% by 2000. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed immigration reform that gave amnesty to three million undocumented immigrants. In 1990, George H. W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990, which increased legal immigration to the United States by 40%.
With these reforms, and others in more recent years, the United States has certainly returned to its welcoming, Melting Pot mentality, right? We are ready to again recite the text of Emma Lazarus’s sonnet, are we not? Well, friends, it is quite the unfortunate reality that we are far from being this harbor of freedom with open borders that scores of people around the world expect of the United States. In fact, we have moved from being the Melting Pot to being a Boiling Pot.
It appears that the bar is being lowered as never before in the present Presidential campaign. Just when we think that the vitriol has reached the depth of indecency, one of the Presidential candidates lowers it further. This has become a game of political limbo that plays out in very ugly ways. “Build the Wall!” has become the rally cry of the masses. “Keep the [fill in the blank] out of our country” is the mantra of the 2016 campaign. Violence and intolerance at political rallies have been not only encouraged, they have been mandated!
One does not need to leave Rehoboth Beach to witness intolerance. Recently, on Route 1, I saw a red pickup truck with two large US flags flapping beside two large Confederate flags. What is the message the owner of this vehicle is sending? I am not sure I want to know.
These divisions in our midst are illustrations of intolerance that destroy any sense of community and safety. The subjects of this scorn are not only those whose skin is different. The gay and transgender communities continue unabated in suffering the slings and arrows of prejudice and hatred.
The State of Georgia passed legislation in February, titled “The First Amendment Defense Act.” If effectively legislates LGBT discrimination. Gone are the efforts to this end that simply affirm that homosexuality and the transgender community are sinful and wrong. Now the perverse, discriminatory conservative approach is to cast their efforts as protecting the Constitutional rights of their own flock. They feel they are the new persecuted demographic, because they have been forced to provide services to those whose lifestyles they adamantly reject.
Friends, this Boiling Pot continues to spill over and scald those who should be protected. Having just watched the inspiring performance of The Laramie Project at Clear Space Theater, I am saddened to realize that not much has changed since Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, tortured, and killed in October, 1998. At the conclusion of this stage production, conversation with the cast and those who attended centered on how timely this play is today. Written in 2000 by Moises Kaufman, it truly is a prophetic work that calls all people to embrace those who are different, those who are the recipients of flagrant discrimination and those who are treated unjustly.
How can we turn the heat down under that Boiling Pot? How can we let these divisive issues simmer, rather than spill over? What can we do to cool the heat of intolerance? God help us, we have another eight months of this outrageous Presidential campaign!