よくアメリカは人種るつぼと言われるけど、実はそうでもない。あまり交わらない。特に「白人対黒人」みたいなのは見えないところでものすごく根強い。外国人として、日本人として、アジア人として、移民としてサイドラインからアメリカの人種問題を見ていると、なんでいつまでもこうなんだろう、ととても思う。
表面的にはるつぼを気取っているけど、なんで交わらないんだろう。なんで固執するんだろう。それは嫌悪感というよりも、やはり自分と似たものと一緒にいたいという連帯感からくるんじゃないかと思う。だから白人は白人と友達になりやすいし、黒人は黒人とつるみやすい。そうやってグループ化するから溝は全く狭まらない。グループ化してその文化の中で育つから、社会的地位が変わることもなく、明らかな「人種差別」が社会的に禁止されている中でもやはり黒人人口の多くが貧困層にとどまり、犯罪歴が付く。
ジョディ・ピコー著、「Small Great Things」を読みました。（「私の中のあなた」という映画の原作を書いた人）いい本、というと悲しくなるけど、アメリカの現在の人種問題をものすごく的確に表現している本でした。
It is not a racial melting pot in the U.S. as it's often called. White people hang out with white people, and black people hang out with black people, even though they may live in a same neighborhood and has similar social status. Most of the time, it's not the overt racial discrimination; rather it's just people are more comfortable with other people who are similar to themselves. Just like jocks hang out with jocks and nerds hang out with nerds (in a way, regardless of their race). When I was going to school in the South, I always noticed that white students take a seat next to another white student in the first day of class, and black student takes a seat next to another black student. Nobody sat next to me.
Because they stay in a group, many white people stay in the legacy social status of middle class and black people in poverty. Not much social mobility unless you consciously pursue it real hard. Not because society doesn't allow it to be, but because people in a same group tend to act similarly; if your friends are criminals, it's accepted for you to be a criminal,too; if your friends go to college, you decide to go to college, too.
As a Japanese, an Asian (a true minority for that matter), a foreigner, and an immigrant, I tend to see American racial issues from the sideline. And it's difficult to understand why Americans are so infatuated with their race.
(I'm not saying there is no racial discrimination in Japan. In a lot of way, Japan has more overt racial and ethnic discrimination widely accepted in society, sadly.)
I read Jodi Picoult's
Small Great Things. I would recommend this book to anybody in a heartbeat.
It is written from three different characters' points of view:
-Ruth, a black, hard working and experienced labor and delivery nurse with her nursing degree from Yale, who has worked so hard to have a middle class life even after losing her military husband who was killed on duty and to raise her son to be a straight A student, who gets accused of murdering a newborn baby;
-Turk, a hardcore white supremacist, former active skinhead (now a covert) who has a swastika tattooed on his head, who becomes a first-time father and requested the hospital to take Ruth off his son's care, whose newborn son dies when the baby was under Ruth's watch;
-Kennedy, a white public defender, who has financial ability to be a public defender because her white husband is a doctor, who defends Ruth on her first murder trial.
First of all, it's a page turner because of the interesting story, and what's not to like about trial.
But what's so clever about this book is that it's written in these points of views, and it is well researched, and you get to know the both side of the story.
Obviously, Ruth and Turk are polar opposite. The writer cleverly chose the black character to be the highly educated, middle class, responsible person in the society, and the white character to be the uneducated laborer, and criminal. You get to know how they grew up and how they got to a point where they are.
But the most important character is Kennedy. She basically is like us, yes, me included despite me being neither black nor white, who lives in American society, living their lives without thinking about race unless there is a news on TV about police shooting an unarmed black man.
This was a heavy blow in a stomach book with the writing that is very pleasurable to read.
