Commentary: In the defence of the United States of America
|
| Published on Thursday, December 27, 2007 |
Email To Friend Print Version |
By Jean H Charles
I was sitting on a bench recently at La Guardia Airport waiting for my plane bound for Atlanta; I was picking up my son, a sophomore at Morehouse College. We will be travelling by car from Atlanta to New York for the Holiday, expecting a lot of father-son bonding and the prospect of testing the strength of the Morehouse Man!
 |
| Jean H Charles MSW, JD is Executive Director of AINDOH Inc a non profit organization dedicated to build a kinder and gentle Caribbean zone for all. He can be reached at: jeanhcharles@aol.com |
I was approached by a young Peruvian, an exchange student who engaged in a conversation with me. “I love America, the people are gentle, and it is not Peru where everybody is too preoccupied to be kind and open." I gave him a high five and said right on brother!
I have been living in the United States for the past forty years. I came to New York when I was 22 years old. Fresh and excited, I said to America, here I am, ready to be molded and become what ever I can become. I was already in possession of a Law and International Affairs degree from the State University of Haiti. I landed a job of translating letters and correspondence from Spanish, French and Portuguese into English for a major card company, Kem Plastic Card (I do not know if it still exists).
Arrogantly, I took time off every Friday to see what the City looked like. Some six months later I was admitted at Columbia University School of Social Work for my good deeds in Haiti. (I founded and ran a volunteer clinic for prostitute women, connecting them with med students for treatment and for prevention.).
My Social Work Degree on hand, I travelled later on the spur of the moment to the City of New Orleans. I visited Tulane University where I applied to the Law School. (Louisiana has both civilian and common law system.)
I was accepted before I came back to New York, but I had to pay my own way to school. (I am still stingy with my alumni dues and with my contribution.)
I have laid out my own personal experience to come to the conclusion that the United States take the young man and the young woman from anywhere in the world with a pint of perspiration and an ounce of inspiration to transform them into any path they want to lead into.
I have visited several countries in the world. Canada, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Kenya… The United States might be unique in letting a black or minority immigrant with the drive to lead, accomplish his ambition of succeeding in any field he wants to choose from.
In my trip to France, I was surprised to see that most of the black workers were mostly engaged in subway cleaning. In London there were enough well dressed black men and women to indicate some type of integration but not to the scale and to the number seen in the United States.
Canada takes as much as possible brain power from the black world, in particular from the Caribbean, but it lets them vegetate in a state of limbo before they are used to the best of their ability. Sweden, Denmark and Norway do not have enough blacks and minorities to really test the welcoming mat of hospitality.
The United States is unique in the sense that it had a Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, who set a high standard of hospitality for all, in particular for blacks and minorities. As such we have now Barack Obama to be a serious contender to become the next president of this country. Condoleezza Rice is a noteworthy confident of and adviser to the President of the United States.
There is a Creole proverb that says: ”because of the rice, some small rocks in the pot will have the chance of tasting the good taste of the grease in the food.”
Because of the openness of opportunity to blacks, the minorities from the Caribbean, Asia and Africa have the chance to taste the sweetness of the welcoming hospitality of the United States. It seems each country of the world needs their own version of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson to create a society hospitable to all within that country.
The United States is right now at low point in goodwill all over the world. The aftermath of the war in Iraq; the obstructionism policy in getting into the bandwagon to treat the global warming with a sense of urgency; the depravation in mores and in ethos by the like of the culture of MTV and BET; the decline in foreign aid in targeting areas such as economic development for the rural world in the underdeveloped countries; the schizophrenic immigration policy in its formulation and its application (want them!... don’t want them!)...
All that has contributed to give mileage to the proponents and to the competitors of the United States.
Yet, the order and the good governance of each major city and each village; the urge to do better every day; the debate between excellence and not so excellent; the hospitality towards all and malice towards none (at least in the United States); the collegiality between all races even between those that are fighting each other in their homeland... all these, in this moment of peace and goodwill to all good men on earth, should urge the United States to stop, ponder, reflect and celebrate the fact that in an imperfect world... It is still the best place on earth for black or minority men or women (voire the blue eye from Russia or the blond hair from Slovenia) to live, to dream and to raise their children while enjoying the smiles and the kisses of the children of their children.
Note: I have often used the term hospitality. It means: opening up your arm and your heart to a stranger, a foreigner an immigrant , those who are not from the elite class from your own country, who come in good faith to facilitate the concept of nationhood. |
|
