You can’t un-melt the melting pot
Growing up, watching Miss America, Miss USA and Miss Universe were exciting times in our house. My sister and I were starstruck little girls enamoured with the glitz and glamour of 1980s beauty pageants. We were oblivious to any corruption going on behind the scenes and were naively lured in by the fanfare of it all.
It was while watching one of these pageants when the emcee asked a contestant during an on-stage interview, “What do you think about the United States being a melting pot?” I remember turning to my mom and asking, “What’s a melting pot?” It was the first time I’d ever heard the phrase and the way my mom explained it stuck with me forever.
She said something simple like, “It means the U.S. is a blend of all types of people — different races and cultures instead of just one race or culture. That’s what makes our country special.”
Listening to her, my mind conjured an image of a humongous pot with people of all nations melting together. As an eight-year old, I took everything my mom and dad said as absolute fact, and even though some of the “facts” they told me growing up may not have been exactly correct, I feel like her definition of “melting pot” was spot-on. Her explanation sunk deep into my psyche and remains to this day.
One of the many things that concerns me about our country’s current trajectory is the ignorance surrounding our melting pot roots and mentality. As my mom said 38 years ago to a wide-eyed little girl, it’s what makes the United States special. With that in mind, each passing week becomes more draining.
We have people in power posting racist memes on social medea. We have two separate Super Bowl halftime shows which feels equivalent to having separate water fountains during the Civil Rights Movements — unnecessary, overtly prejudiced and a waste of money. We have people doing horrible things in the name of Jesus. We have someone using “Make America Great Again” as a movement when America is more widely considered a continent, not a country, but I guess MUSAGA “Make the United States of America Great Again” wasn’t as appealing of an acronym. Maybe it had too much of a foreign ring to appease the current occupant of the White House.
Related Items
A vanilla, sparrow-only life would be devastating
The endgame was always just to blow things up
No Kings 3: Protests reshape identity across America
Finding strength in community
When you try to solidify something that’s already melted, it never returns to its original shape, consistency or appearance. So trying to un-melt a melting pot of a nation is not only absurd but it’s impossible. If you don’t believe me, melt a stick of butter then put it in the freezer and see what happens when it solidifies. Spoiler — it will not be a lovely rectangular prism. Further, when you melt then refreeze butter, it breaks its natural emulsion. It becomes grainy, crumbly and oily, as the fat and water separate. It’s essentially useless. Are you getting the metaphor?
Physics tells us that a force always creates an equal and opposite counterforce, so as long as the current administration continues using force to try and get their way, there will always be a counterforce. Nothing will ever get accomplished or resolved. We’ll continue unproductively and forcefully bouncing back and forth until we’re all exhausted and literally counting down the seconds until the next presidential election.
Most days it all makes me want to bury my head in the sand, but I can’t do that. We need to keep the conversation going in an attempt to understand one another and move toward productive progress. If you have a media outlet or social media platform, use it responsibly to share information and encourage compassion among all human beings, not as a place for lies, hate and bigotry.
As the words on Bad Bunny’s football said on Sunday, “Together we are America.” Let’s please remember that we are better together and that the continuation of force will leave us in ruins. Most importantly, listen to the memory of a little girl — being a melting pot is what makes us special.
(Susanna Shetley is a writer and editor who lives in Waynesville. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
