How Accepting and "Open-minded" Are You

The sole issue for open-mindedness is NOT ethnicty. The thread is about open-mindedness, not ethnicty.

 

It doesn't, but it doubles your chance of a date

 

Um. . .I was quoting the site. It said "war and abortion and ethnical issues", although I admit, it was all in plain text. I added the bold to emphasize the mistake.

 

Being a member of a group in which you are a minority does NOT make you open-minded or accepting, but deliberately reaching out of the little box where everyone is 'like you' (whatever that means - whether ethnically, racially, religiously, politically, economically, age, education, etc.) does. F'rinstance, those who have spent any time on the 'Religion' threads on this forum might have noticed that I am fairly set in my committment to my beliefs. However, I haven't secluded myself in a religious ghetto, or stuck to only friendships within my religious group, and I have been deliberate about meeting people, talking with people, building friendships with people, and learning about the views/beliefs/worldviews of people in other religious groups. The same goes for people in other countries, cultures, political beliefs, etc. - the idea being to 'see' through another's eyes.

Many people claim to be open-minded and accepting, but will never do anything to even expose themselves to people grounded in philosophical, religious, or political views other than their own - discussions on these topics tend to become more like 'pep rallies' that allow us to cheer for our favorite 'sides', rather than real opportunities to learn, experience, or explore anything that might seriously open us up to question or inspect our own viewpoints.

Except for the first question (went to school somewhere where I was a minority), all of the questions could only be answered 'yes' by a deliberate choice. Most of us have clear choices as to whether or not we live, work, or socialize in a given setting (and in this case, the 'socializing' part gets to the heart of the issue).

Only two of eight questions had anything to do with religion, and the point of those was about stepping out of what you're 'used to'. None of the questions asks if you attend religious services, if you have religious beliefs, or what those beliefs might be. In fact, to answer the questions 'yes', a 'religious' person or an atheist would both have to deliberately choose to attend services, participate, or be a member of a group outside his own background. (Along this line of thinking, I highly recommend that anyone with no religious beliefs visit someplace where people have strong beliefs, and that those with strong religious beliefs visit somewhere people have 'other' beliefs.)

My line of thinking in designing the survey was to ask, "How willing are you to look through another's eyes?" I think we can all agree that seeing through someone else's point of view is to be desired. However, none of us will 'see' if we never bother to look.

 

Capt Ann,

I think that is a worthwhile objective, but I don't believe that the survey as it stands tells us very much, I'm afraid.

For example, the question about whether someone has moved to an area where they are in a racial minority. While having done so would probably rule out any hardcore racialists, it isn't exactly proof of being open-minded about anything. Equally, the fact that someone hasn't done so doesn't in any way indicate that they at all closed-minded.

Perhaps the survey would be more meaningful for other people in other countries. But here in the UK, for example, whilst many urban areas have ethnically-diverse populations, there are very few areas where minority groups are actually in a local majority.

To illustrate my point: I have attended schools with a high proportion of ethnic minority pupils; attended churches with a high proportion of ethnic minority worshippers; worked in offices with a high proportion of ethnic minority colleagues; and lived in neighbourhoods with sizeable ethnic minority communities. (Not because I sought to, but because that is the natural product of living in the society into which I was born and raised.) But in none of those were the minorities in the majority.

Therefore I cannot tick most of the boxes in the survey. But does that indicate that I am not broad-minded? Well, I don't think so. Having always had friends/colleagues/neighbours of many different backgrounds has made me more broad-minded, I reckon.

Regards,

Johnno.

 

oh, well. I thought it worth while to try

This is an interesting observation. I lived for 8 years in Miami, FL, a very diverse, sprawling, rapidly-growing metropolitan area. The city was built in waves as groups of people moved in from other areas. So, if you give me an address in Miami, I could give a good guess as to whether you lived in a Haitian, first-wave Cuban, Marielito Cuban, Nicarauguan, White Yuppy, or Afr. American neighborhood.

Even in very-mixed areas of the country (like when I lived for three years in California), I noticed that people tended to socialize along very homogeneous lines. So, for instance, very few of the scout troops, social service organizations, fraternal groups, etc., showed a real 'mix' that reflected the demographics of the surrounding community. Even churches in the area were predominantly only one race or ethnic group. (I have heard that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that Sunday morning was the most racially divided hour in America.)

I'm not sure if there's a difference in the US compared to the UK because of our history, or because of the size and opportunity to stay within an isolated group, even in a large country. (There are large areas in south Florida where you can live, grow old, and die, and never speak English.) But for whatever reason, as much as I hate to admit it, race is still very much an issue here in the US.

 

I think it was obviously a typo and meant to say 'ethical'

 

That’s quite interesting to know.

Although I can recall a few areas (in London) where there are certain ethnic groups (such as Orthodox Jews, Turkish and Eastern European), these are still not a majority. For the most part this type of gathering is not widespread or common.

I can probably move to pretty much any location in the UK and still be in the majority group.

 

Since I'm pretty sure "ethnical" isn't a word, I think you're right. I wouldn't have put the "ethnic" part in bold if I didn't want to indicate that *I* wasn't making a typo.

But that typo does indicate to me that the person who made that site types the word "ethnic" a lot, since the n isn't anywhere near the eye, and it requires moving a finger to get to. I'll bet he's an ethnomusicologists that spent most of his class time apologizing for being white instead of studying music.

 

maybe if you take cities or towns as a whole, but when you look at suburbs then it is frequently that way. if you knew stoke on trent well then you could literally divide some areas with a knife along racial lines. its only really asians of pakistani decent that have done this though. in my area at least it isnt the case with other ethnic groups.

 

Possibly. Although i've often gone to write one word, and wrote a diffrent word entirely! Usually ones that start off with the same few letters, and/or sounds similar.

It's a mistake at the subconscious level.

An example of this, incidentally, is in your quote, where you wrote "anywhere near the eye" instead of "anywhere near the 'i'"