Paramount Theatre
Doesn't Like Bigotry
RECEIVED Thu., April 6, 2006
Editor,
While I can appreciate people feeling concern about the ever-changing events in this country and their need to express that concern, I find the anti-foreigner and anti-immigrant fervor demonstrated in this country, state, and city very unsettling. Sociologists opine that this mentality is indicative of a pathology (i.e., xenophobia, racism, bigotry) on both an individual and a societal level. Demonizing and marginalizing whole groups of people because of (real or imagined) differences is how hate groups get started.
This bigotry makes some of the “patriotism” and “pro-Americanism” seem feigned and phony. When people engage in bigotry under the guise of “love of country,” it turns expressions of those things we hold dear – family, God, country – into hackneyed slogans. A people cannot pretend to stand tall when they are doing so on the bodies of those they have torn down; especially when they have torn down those people through backbreaking (slave) labor.
This disrespect for diversity and multiculturalism is based on ignorance and therefore on fear and distrust of peoples and societies that are not understood. Just because it's something different, doesn't mean it's “bad.”
Americans ask why people hate us. It's because of this type of perverse ethnocentrism and hypocrisy that many around the world view this country with disdain. And if we truly want to win the war, many of us should start with ourselves.
While I can appreciate people feeling concern about the ever-changing events in this country and their need to express that concern, I find the anti-foreigner and anti-immigrant fervor demonstrated in this country, state, and city very unsettling. Sociologists opine that this mentality is indicative of a pathology (i.e., xenophobia, racism, bigotry) on both an individual and a societal level. Demonizing and marginalizing whole groups of people because of (real or imagined) differences is how hate groups get started.
This bigotry makes some of the “patriotism” and “pro-Americanism” seem feigned and phony. When people engage in bigotry under the guise of “love of country,” it turns expressions of those things we hold dear – family, God, country – into hackneyed slogans. A people cannot pretend to stand tall when they are doing so on the bodies of those they have torn down; especially when they have torn down those people through backbreaking (slave) labor.
This disrespect for diversity and multiculturalism is based on ignorance and therefore on fear and distrust of peoples and societies that are not understood. Just because it's something different, doesn't mean it's “bad.”
Americans ask why people hate us. It's because of this type of perverse ethnocentrism and hypocrisy that many around the world view this country with disdain. And if we truly want to win the war, many of us should start with ourselves.
J.T. Serrato