We should be celebrating our differences

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday March 23rd, 2009

In order to solve the problems of society we have to have individual change of hearts.

Canadians tend to believe that statement wholeheartedly. Trust me, I know we are not alone in this, but we believe in the old pull yourself up by the bootstraps, solve your own problems, type of attitude.

So, if someone is racist, we think that if we can just convince them to change, or have them meet someone of another race they respect, that will be the end of it. You can add any "ist" to that; sexist, classist, religionist; anyone who has a problem with other people based on stereotypes is thought to be individually deviant and in need of change.

A second way that we confront the bad behaviour of our society is by individually choosing not to be these things. I am not sexist or racist or elitist, or anything that I can think of; so clearly there is no problem.

In case I am explaining this wrong let me try another angle. We Canadians seem to have convinced ourselves that we are nice. This is a friendly, open, accepting country and there are just a few bad apples who act badly, right? We are clearly not like that!

I would like to argue that we use the above arguments as a defence mechanism to make sure we never have to confront the reality of what we are like as a society. We believe in individualism so much, and we believe in equality so much, or we say we do, and so we never have to really change.

The truth is that the problem is not individuals. The problem is culture, it is society, it is norms, and it is historical.

I am a modern, somewhat metrosexual, mostly liberal, mostly equal person. I try never to judge or to base judgments on the things I see. However, I instinctively do. When I see the way a person is dressed, or the car they drive, I make snap judgments. When I am talking to a woman I expect certain behaviours from them and I prejudge whether they are going to like World of Warcraft, or Star Trek, or that sort of thing.

I am sure most of us could add a lot to this list. Homosexuals are overly emotional. People of other races are culturally totally different; which we then create sub racist categories for, Arabs are violent for example. Women can't drive. Try it, I bet you can name your own 10 within a minute.

The thing is, no matter how hard I try to escape this, I cannot. I try to be open and up front and not fall into stereotypical thinking; but then I see an ad for something and realize that women are there as sexual eye candy. Or I see a sitcom and realize that homosexuals are all funny and emotional. Or watch a movie and see that all people of colour are poor.

What bombards us every day from the world around us destroys our ability to see people for who they really are, changing me as an individual is a cop out --- I need to work at changing societal norms. I need to fight against the way this is all influencing my daughters. I need to admit my own racist, sexist, classist, tendencies and work from there.

The other side of this would be to get rid of our post liberal understanding of equality. It just no longer serves us well. I don't want to go back to feelings of superior and inferior, but we need to return to a sense of true difference.

Men and women are different. Our minds work differently, our imaginations work differently, our emotions work differently, and our bodies work differently.

As long as we ignore this truth, we are actually making sexism worse. What we should be doing is admitting the differences and saying that in almost every way that we equate with status, those differences do not matter. Women CEOs bring something to a company that no male CEO can. And by forcing either one of them to abandon their sexual identity to become like the other, we are making the world worse.

This is true of every division we witness. And, it is true of divisions between even the most homogenous of groups. Ever had someone of Scot descent and Irish descent in the same room? How about French and English? And yet, these four peoples are as close together as Ontarians and people living in New Brunswick. There should be practically no difference, and yet . . .

The differences are the things we should be celebrating. In a perfect world we would allow people who are from different cultures, from different religions, from different languages, from different ages, men and women, straight and gay, rich and poor to influence each other and interact with each other in so many ways that we come to realize that we need all of them in order to make the world what it should be.

As long as we think that it is OK just to try to be nicer; as long as we can find someone to make the fall person and say it is because of their racism; as long as we fail to admit we all have a problem; we are not going to get anywhere.