These Are the Americans Who Live in a Bubble

[riversedge]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/americans-remain-deeply-ambivalent-about-diversity/583123/


These Are the Americans Who Live in a Bubble

A significant minority seldom or never meet people from another race, and they prize sameness, not difference.
Emma Green



President Trump is joined by supporters at a campaign rally for Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi in Tupelo.Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Most Americans do not live in a totalizing bubble. They regularly encounter people of different races, ideologies, and religions. For the most part, they view these interactions as positive, or at least neutral.

Yet according to a new study by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and The Atlantic, a significant minority of Americans do not live this way. They seldom or never meet people of another race. They dislike interacting with people who don’t share their political beliefs. And when they imagine the life they want for their children, they prize sameness, not difference. Education and geography seemed to make a big difference in how people think about these issues, and in some cases, so did age.


One of the many questions the Trump era has raised is whether Americans actually want a pluralistic society, where people are free to be themselves and still live side by side with others who aren’t like them. U.S. political discourse is filled with nasty rhetoric that rejects the value of diversity outright. Yet, theoretically, pluralism is good for democracy: In a political era when the vast majority of Americans believe the country is divided over issues of race, politics, and religion, relationships across lines of difference could foster empathy and civility. These survey results suggest that Americans are deeply ambivalent about the role of diversity in their families, friendships, and civic communities. Some people, it seems, prefer to stay in their bubble.


In terms of both geography and culture, America is largely sorted by political identity. In a representative, random survey of slightly more than 1,000 people taken in December, PRRI and The Atlantic found that just under a quarter of Americans say they seldom or never interact with people who don’t share their partisan affiliation. Black and Hispanic people were more likely than whites to describe their lives this way, although education made a big difference among whites: 27 percent of non-college-educated whites said they seldom or never encounter people from a different political party, compared with just 6 percent of college-educated whites...............................



Americans aren’t fully in control of the amount of diversity to which they’re exposed. Some isolation is a matter of geography and class: People living in rural Vermont, the whitest state in America, may not have many opportunities to meet people of another race, for example. Even self-segregation may not be malicious: “It’s hard to spend time with people who are not like you,” Mason said. People may not want to argue about deeply held political beliefs or explain their religious dietary needs to strangers. “At the most basic level, the place that prejudice comes from is not an evil place,” she said. “It’s just that it’s easier to spend time with people who are the same.”..........................

[safeinOhio]

1. Many of those in my area that express the most hate

and in their 60s and 70s are blessed with bi-racial grandkids. Lots of fun to remind them of their grandkids...cognitive dissonance.

[lunatica]

2. When I retired from multi racial, internationally cultural UC Berkelely

I had to move out of California for financial reasons (California is too expensive). Among the most important things I looked for was racial demographics because I wanted to choose the same mix that I was lucky to have in Berkeley. The last thing I wanted was to live in vanilla land!

I picked Santa Fe, New Mexico. I registered to vote for the blue wave and voted for the first Native American women representatives. I love New Mexico!

[Duppers]

3. I'm guilty of this and it's why I hang out here....

I "dislike interacting with people who don’t share their political beliefs."

Except it's not "beliefs," it's reasoning.

[treestar]

4. I really like the differences

So I don't feel much empathy with how it is easier to be with similar people. If anything, Republicans are worse to be around even if they share everything else with me than people who are quite different.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. The college I went to boasted the highest enrollment of foreign students in the US at the time ...

I counted that as a plus. It had some of the benefits of foreign travel without the expense and bother. Hell, I wanted to get out and see the world ! I really envied students who spent a semester, or a year, abroad, but it was out of the question for me.

[Johnny2X2X]

6. Had a colleague tell me a story

When he was 19 in the 90s he left his small town in West Michigan to go to school in Florida, had a professor discuss racism, his honest response was, “Racism no longer exists, because slavery ended in the 1800s.” He’s wiser and a good person now, but that was his honest opinion then.