Ledonna, quite right. The article makes a relevant argument but it's by no means watertight. These things never are. It's also worth noting that it's written from the perspective of British multiculturalism, where race politics play out over somewhat different lines, and for obvious historical reasons.
I could say all kinds of things at this point about what this means to me, but maybe it's better to explain why, with a more personal story.
I grew up in racially mixed suburb in London, and that diversity was something we valued and celebrated. Yes, there were always tensions in daily life, but by and large we were, and still are, very proud to live and work together in a city so rich with variety. You don't need to take my word for it either. Thousands of other people from my home town will tell you the same.
Here's a piece by Zadie Smith, award-winning writer and woman of colour, written shortly after the election of POTUS#45. Smith grew up in the same neighbourhood as I did - we never met, but friends of the family knew her quite well. Her skin is a different colour from mine, but what she says here is about my life too, and the streets I grew up on. It was our patch, but it could have been one of any number in the city.
[quote]
“You were such a champion of ‘multiculturalism.’ Can you admit now that it has failed?” When I hear these questions I am reminded that to have grown up in a homogeneous culture in a corner of rural England, say, or France, or Poland, during the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s, is to think of oneself as having been simply alive in the world, untroubled by history, whereas to have been raised in London during the same period, with, say, Pakistani Muslims in the house next door, Indian Hindus downstairs, and Latvian Jews across the street, is thought of, by others, as evidence of a specific historical social experiment, now discredited.
Of course, as a child I did not realize that the life I was living was considered in any way provisional or experimental by others: I thought it was just life. And when I wrote a novel about the London I grew up in, I further did not realize that by describing an environment in which people from different places lived relatively peaceably side by side, I was “championing” a situation that was in fact on trial and whose conditions could suddenly be revoked.
[unquote]
So yeah. I guess what I'm trying to present is the flip side. If I'm prone to take generalisations about racial identity very personally, it's because I come from a place where they weren't the absolute. None of us were completely colour blind, but it wasn't what defined us either. To us, culture was whatever we shared with our neighbours, and we behaved like human beings do when living together in a climate of mutual respect.
