Just Like Me

The Challenge to Avoid Sameness Bruce Freeman and Jean Stang

Summit College Associate Studies February 7, 2013

We live in these United States with many divisions, including large geographic divisions

Concentration of Black Population 2010-by County

Our urban counties have racial divisions

Concentration of Black Population, Cuyahoga County 2010

At the same time, our country is becoming more diverse

Multlingual Multi-hued Multi-ethnic Minority-majority communities are becoming more common, not just in California, Hawaii and the Southwest, but in the heartland

Sociologists are saying American culture and society is bifurcatingsplintering into three distinct, separated groups that have little in common and are like living on different planets:
The New upper class The Permanent lower class Those in the middle (aka the shrinking middle class)
Jonathan Rauch-Washington Post, May 12, 2012

Psychological studies have shown we choose partners based on physical and cultural similarities (most, but not all, of the time!)

Homogamy-the tendency to marry people who are psychologically and/or physically similar to ourselves

Endogamy-the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, economic class or social group, rejecting others by choice or by our social mores, as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships

Class Matters

Physical/Ethnic

Physical/Ethnic

Physical/Ethnic/Cultural

Physical/Ethnic

Social/Cultural

The Baby Lab

Increasingly, we listen to and seek to be with those who views are just like ours

Walter Cronkite-CBS News-Reporting the News for All Americans

Rachel Maddow-MSNBC Liberal Commentator

Rush Limbaugh-Premier Radio Networks Conservative Commentator

Weve evolved into having more extreme liberal or conservatives viewpoints, and are less inclined to listen to each other, even if the actual facts on many subjects are seemingly quite accessible:
Is health care a government responsibility Is global warming occurring? When does a human life begin? What should our government do? When should we go to war?

Clinton 1995 State of the Union

Bush 2005 State of the Union

Elmhurst, Illinois

Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn, New York

Walnut Creek, Ohio

So Now What?

Contact Hypothesis-Muzafer Sherif

Kumbaya coming together philosophy is substantiated by his work with young boys in a camp setting

Those with Graduate degrees have the most homogenous political interactions! Those who arent high school grads have most diverse political interactions Deliberative polls; town meetingsgathering together

Produced more polarization for participants before vs. after

Emerging church (vs. mainline churches) has traded traditional certainty with doubt with a commitment to dialogue Extreme political interest>extreme partisanship>rigid fanaticism

Emerging Church

Vineyard Church, Cleveland

Indifferent citizens leavened the systemgave it partisanship Some political scientists say no apparent benefit to increasing number of persons who actually votebut there is good reason to increase the conversation leading to tolerance But were nurturing our certainty over what is true

Caffeinated Federalism Ad HocGovernance

Rise of Interest groups (e.g., AARP/NRA) Non-elected decision-makers Use of Philanthropy to produce a social outcome Unlimited use of money to influence elections (Citizens United) We arent exposed to a grand national narrative; no communal drive to unanimityis that bad?

Need to be connected,..crosscutting,.in contact .with others in many wayscreates a dynamic relationship of supporters and opponentsfriends and enemiesthose like us and different than us on varying subjects over an extended, lifelong period, not just at college

Diverse

Not Diverse

Overall Rankings

Your Thoughts Where does this mix of diversity, with regular contact and cross-cutting exchange, occur now?
How embedded in our daily life is it, if it does occur?

How can this cross-cutting occur throughout our lives? What does it take? What can one person (you) do to change the patterns we see?

Next Week Visit www.F2FJustLikeMe.blogspot.com This PowerPoint, with NBC Video and F2F Comment Summary

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Primary Sources

Mooney, Chris, Liberals and Conservatives Dont Just Vote Differently; They Think Differently, Washington Post, April 12, 2012
Rauch, Jonathan, Two Americas, Growing Apart, Reason, May 5, 2010 (book review) 60 Minutes, Babies Help Unlock the Origins of Morality, Show aired November 18, 2012. Leslie Stahl, correspondent Lee, Barrett A., John Iceland and Gregory Sharp, Racial and Ethnic Diversity Goes Local: Charting Change in American Communities Over Three Decades, US 2010 Project, September 2012 Fiske, Susan T., Are We Born Racist, in Marsh, Jason, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Jeremy Adam Smith (eds.), Are We Born Racist?, Boston. Beacon Press. 2010 Bishop, Bill, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of America is Tearing Us Apart