Have you ever talked about a specific part of the country, such as the area around New York City or Philadelphia, and had that one friend say people there are different? Or talked about how, on your vacation to California, you had a lot of fun, but your friends assured you that living there in a more permanent manner would be the most horrid thing a human being could do?
“Folks around here are just different” seems to be the overarching theme in many people’s approach to areas outside of their own. Well, I, for one, do not entirely agree, and feel this mindset is holding people back from understanding not only other people, but entire cultures.
Every day our economy moves toward a more global focus. If people have some unreasonable bias against people from a different region of the same country, how can they ever expect to deal with business situations in which it is possible for most, if not all, of their clients to be overseas?
It is very interesting how we (as humans), assume that our place of birth is heaven on earth without even taking a glance at anywhere else. It is also crucial that we remove such biases towards other parts of the country in order to increase cooperation on the political level. This will ensure that our country remains competitive on the global scale.
I have a friend who moved here with the assumption that everyone in the area was either A) dumb or B) stupid. There was no other option. He was quickly proven wrong (although our high school did not offer some of the classes he had taken, there was nothing wrong with the people themselves).
And this is just as true, if not more so, of people from Mississippi as they move out of the state. I have a friend that will swear to you that other people just aren’t as accepting as we are, or that, as I said earlier, if I were to live in California, I would be surrounded by crazy people. He never actually elaborated on what he meant by crazy people. (I didn’t run into any of these when I was out there .)
It is very interesting to talk with people from the differing regions of the world. Each group’s culture has its own heritage. Despite this difference in culture, each seems to be strikingly similar. My friend from India is just as concerned as I with getting a good job and providing for his future family.
Recently, I was looking into various study abroad programs and realized just how many cultures I could go learn about. I look forward to one day being able to study abroad so that I can have the chance to fully submerge myself in another culture.
As technology moves us to a more globalized world, it is crucial for people to be more accepting of cultures unlike their own, but in order to do this, we must first be accepting of people from what the global community sees as the same place.
I am proud to be an American, and will stand by any MSU student, Hispanic Californian, Massachusetts politician, or New Orleans Saints fan (though I may sometimes wonder about the latter) as we approach a new, globalized world.
Read Sprabery is a sophomore majoring in computer science. He can be contacted at [email protected].