Stereotypes, be gone: A call for us to unite

By Kathleen Parker

Americans are more divided than ever, and Democrats and Republicans are to blame.

So say a majority of citizens polled as part of USA Network's “Characters Unite” campaign, a community affairs program launched in January aimed at addressing social injustice and cultural differences within our borders.

You may have seen one of the ads, featuring a rainbow of Americans making a pledge for unity and speaking out against stereotypes. .

My usual cynicism toward rubber-bracelet virtue - or pledges to be a better person - is somewhat muted by my having participated in a “Characters Unite” panel led by Tom Brokaw at the Newseum. It isn't so easy to be a critic when you're in the arena.

Topics spanned the usual but the focus was on the “unum” that follows “e pluribus.” How do we become one out of many, as America's Great Seal promises?

According to the USA Network poll, more than seven in 10 Americans think that we are too divided along political lines (75 percent) or economic lines (73 percent). Smaller majorities say that we're too divided along racial and ethnic lines

(53 percent) or religious lines (52 percent).

In other findings, 51 percent believe that prejudice, discrimination and intolerance are a very or somewhat serious problem. A majority (55 percent) say that lack of unity among Americans has gotten worse in the past decade. And 65 percent believe that recent angry displays at town-hall meetings - as well as Rep. Joe Wilson's “You lie!” and Rep. Alan Grayson's claim that Republicans' health-care plan is for seniors “to die quickly” - are part of a larger problem rather than isolated examples blown out of proportion by the media (35 percent).

The operating premise of the USA Network campaign is that diversity is good and ought to bind rather than separate us. It's a nice thought, but not so easily realized.

Amid two wars, a recession, high unemployment, immigration issues and the ever-present threat of terrorist attack, it is easy to hunker down into one's own bunker, among one's own kind. It's easy to place blame elsewhere.

And, obviously, there are broad philosophical differences about how to solve our problems and what role government should play.

Perhaps the answer is in what the USA Network team calls the “American character” - the principles that bind us rather than the issues that separate us. Is there still such a thing, or have we all become leading divas in our own passion plays? Has identity politics overtaken the shared values we used to tote in our mental backpacks?

Among the sample questions distributed to panelists in advance of the event were: Who outside of politics today best represents the American character? Who is today's Joe DiMaggio?

Names mentioned in my informal survey included Oprah, Brokaw, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. What they have in common are characteristics that we value as “American” traits: self-made, personally responsible, entrepreneurial, honest, hard-working and generous. Throw in fair-minded, God-fearing (read: humble) and devoted to family, and you've got a pretty complete definition of the traditional American character.

I'm not sure pledging to greater unity will eradicate bigotry or partisanship any more than pledging allegiance to the flag improves national security. But a call to eliminate stereotypes is necessarily a call to bury identity politics.

That alone would be a giant step forward from pluribus to unum.

n Comments: kathleen

parker@washpost.com