I’ve discovered a place with perfect racial harmony.
We have a difficult time in this world accepting and trusting people who are not like us. The saying “birds of a feather flock together”, is not just a saying. We all seek out our own kind. We shrink from and are suspicious of those who are not our kind. We are a prejudice society. We instinctively categorize people we see every day. Pay attention to it next time you are walking down a crowded street. Some of the obvious categories are skin color and gender. Less apparent classifying we do could be financial status, smell, and attire. Some subconscious factors at work are dialect, or how a person speaks, size, is somebody very over weight, or very short in stature, and gait or posture, do they shuffle or walk slowly for their age, do they slouch when they sit. In addition to having an active personal or political reason to prejudge someone for superficial reasons, every one develops prejudices for other people in a passive manner. It’s an evolutionary self-preservation response.
This topic came to me after spending some time in Los Angeles over the holidays. I’ve travelled to the four corners of this country of ours. I don’t think LA has a greater mix of ethnicity than any other part of the country, but the different cultures seem to cross over and intermingle more there than anywhere else. In Manhattan for example, the ethnic cultures all seem to stick to a certain neighborhood or part of town. It’s that way in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Miami as well. But in LA, all the races and cultures cross over and interact daily. There are still neighborhoods like Korea town, Elysian Park Heights, and Compton that have an obvious color, but generally people move amongst each other in LA. I won’t say that they move amongst each other peacefully because there is a long history of racial violence that we’ve all seen live on the evening news.
I found a place in Los Angeles that seems to be a safe haven for all ethnicities to interact, practice their own special rituals and religions and do so without any fear of ethnic persecution or violence. It is a beautiful park with thousands of acres. There are perfectly manicured lawns with an array of trees and plants from cactus to pine to magnolia. Energizing fountains and tasteful statuary grace the landscape. I’ve visited this place several times but I’ve never noticed this racial harmony before.
I spent some time at this park on Christmas day. The first thing that made me take notice were the two traffic cops moving cars into and out of the park. The smooth flow of rows and rows of cars into the park could serve as a lesson to LA’s finest. Once inside the park, the calm rush of vehicles seems to disappear into the many arteries leading to all corners of this huge haven. I took the first left turn and noticed small groups of people gathered all over the lawns. Soon the various ethnic and religious groups started to catch my eye. There were Latin people next to Indian people next to Muslim people next to Black people next to white people next to Asian people. There were no disagreements. In fact there was a very engaging and cordial atmosphere. I found the spot I was looking for. There was a group of Latin people to my left and some Asian (maybe Philipino or Indonesian) people to my right. We made some small talk, Merry Christmas, nice day, etc. People said “excuse me”, “ have a nice day”,and “goodby”. The experience was frankly unbelievable.
I spent about an hour at the park and then drove out in the same calm pace with which I entered. I started to wonder why such harmony existed here in this park. Maybe it was the “good will toward men” attitude of the season. I suspect not. It’s the park itself. Was this the sort of calm and coexistence that Martin Luther King and Ghandi worked so hard and died to achieve? I am also convinced that as we all leave the gates of this park, prejudice as usual will shortly return. We clearly have the capacity to “all get along”. I’ve seen it. The hard thing is to live it, believe it, teach it, and expect nothing less.
There are thousands of parks like the one in LA all over the world. We should make an effort to spend more time in them. The one in LA is right across the street from Disney studios. It’s called Forest Lawn. It’s a cemetery.
Good talk, S
