Trying times bring Americans together, as we certainly realize now.
Days so unusual as these also require reflection. We ponder the future, reconsider what is truly important to us and even approach uncomfortable issues? like why some people hate Americans.
We should also stop to ask why our coming together these past weeks is so remarkable. How and why is this somehow dramatically different from the status quo? Why must tragedy strike to unite us?
Such a question certainly troubles the soul. Yet, we must seek out the answer, for there lies a portrait of who we are and what we have become.
The place to start, certainly, is our own backyard. Even as we share in the national feelings evoked since Sept. 11, Utahns maintain a long tradition of being a people apart?or at least seeing ourselves that way.
Perhaps it’s the remnant of a separationist ethic, handed down by the band of religious exiles that settled this valley 150 years ago. Maybe it’s geography?the isolation of this mountainous desert promoting a rugged, maverick mind-set.
Probably, though, it’s all in our heads.
As the past month and a half hopefully prove, we are tied to other Americans by commonalities more important than the real or fictitious factors dividing us.
Yet, artificial divisions will persist. Even within the state, Utahns separate along various lines.
Geographically, Salt Lake County provides the perfect example. One can jump on the freeway from downtown and, assuming there is no traffic, arrive at the point of the mountain within 20 minutes.
Even in this relatively short distance, though, you pass numerous independent townships. Instead of being Salt Lakers, we claim allegiance to Holladay or Murray or Sandy or West Jordan. Even South Salt Lake is separate from Salt Lake City.
The county, small as it is geographically, includes fifteen towns, each with its own mayor and council. Why? Is there any noticeable difference between West Valley and Taylorsville?
In reality, we are all part of the same urban area. Yet, the separationist impulse is strong, urging us to break off and claim some sort of independence.
Some might argue that efficiency is the answer, that one city government stretching from the avenues to the Bluffdale prison can’t handle the needs of each community. But the issue involves more than simply effective local government.
Each township in Salt Lake County is practically independent, with all the restaurants and strip malls available to make downtown excursions obsolete. The problem is that people don’t gather, don’t congregate, don’t mill about and experience one another, except at the local supermarket or ward house.
You can find students on this campus from the east bench who know practically nothing about West Valley or Rose Park. “Isn’t that the ghetto?”
Whatever it is, West Valley claims a population second in size only to Salt Lake among Utah’s cities. And it is a stone’s throw away from every other spot in the county, no matter how far east or south. Still, its reputation often inspires images of a wasteland, the place where everyone is glad they don’t live. How can we all reside so close and yet so far apart?
More than geography divides us. Whether by skin color or lifestyle, the valley is segregated so that certain people are more welcome in particular areas.
Everyone in Sandy knows that only students, liberals, gay people and hippie freaks live in the avenues. And everyone living downtown or near the university understands that brainwashed conservatives and boring family folk inhabiting cookie cutter homes reserve all rights to the south valley. Regulations require a white picket fence and 2.4 spawn. Wait, make that 5.7 children?this is Utah.
Houses along the east bench, in Olympus Cove and even up the canyons are gigantic. But acreage is less important than altitude. Living on a hill means looking down every morning at those poor saps sprawled across the valley floor, commuting to lame jobs that pay under six figures. How could anyone live on that?
And, of course, the peons below must crane their necks to look up at the hill, dreaming of what they one day hope to be.
And, of course, if you are Hispanic, you must live in Rose Park, Glendale, certain parts of West Valley (as long as you’re not threatening anyone next door in Taylorsville) or my neighborhood, where the sweet aroma from taco stands fills the air.
No surprise, also, that a police station exists a block away from my humble abode.
Areas with ethnic minorities are mandated to have plenty of extra cops on hand?though being white and walking into the 7-Eleven on the corner means I’m actually the minority nine times out of ten.
Then there is the Mormon issue. Are you, or aren’t you? We size up everyone we meet, looking for clues?the CTR ring, facial hair, body piercings and key words like “testimony” and “awesome.” All these signs point to one side or the other of the religious rift, causing more tremors than the Wasatch fault.
These divisions sound ridiculous, and they are. But we construct them and live according to them every day. We cling to an apparently natural impulse to divide from the whole and band together with smaller groups.
Occasionally, we coalesce over the Olympics or the Jazz.
But even these factors cannot bring true unity, for protests will surely accompany the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, and even my imbecile roommate must betray hometown pride and root for the Lakers.
Utahns certainly hold no monopoly on sectionalism.
We live in a country where distinct lifestyles and attitudes are invented and placed inside artificial state borders. Even 140 years after the Civil War, many Americans insist on the importance of states’ rights.
People are quick to identify with what region they’re from, whether it’s New England or the Northwest. But you’ve never seen hometown pride until you meet someone from Chicago.
Within states and cities, the divisions are strong, just as they are in Salt Lake. Blacks live here, whites live there, Chinatown is north of downtown, and anyone who can’t afford the suburbs is condemned to the inner-city.
It is only in the case of terrorism that we are all Americans.
James welcomes feedback at: [email protected] or send letters to the editor to: [email protected].