America used to be known as the world's melting pot. Noun. A place where a variety of races, cultures, or individuals assimilate into a cohesive whole. A sort of blending into a blob of same-ness. A denying of the different, a bending of cultures into a new thing all together. Individuality obscured into a fiery ooze. Don't know where one ends and the other begins. In my mind, I see a giant pot of molten steel poured out thick and cooled into strong beams. Celebrate the common.
Then along about the late 90's early 2000's there was this idea that America was more of a salad bowl. All tossed in together but preserved as unique parts. Non-homogeneous. Ethnicity revered and celebrated above the whole but existing in the same bowl and maybe covered in a similar oily film of Ranch or 1000 Island. Resistant to blending or bending. Fierce defense of the different. Celebrate the uncommon.
Seems to me we might be better off to rethink both analogies. I propose soup. Bean soup, to be specific. All kinds of beans. I have a recipe for 15 bean soup. That's a lot of variety. Kidney, pinto, white, navy, black, red, garbanzo, lima, black-eyed peas.... Then you add the vegetables. Onion, garlic, celery, corn, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes. Then some barley and maybe a few pasta shapes. And meat sometimes - bits of beef, pork, chicken. Submerged in a seasoned bath - salt, pepper, oregano, cayenne, rosemary, thyme, parsley... Then left to hang out together for a good while. Sitting. Marinating. Simmering. Until the aroma induces growl-y stomachs and water-y mouths. Through the steam you can still pick out the ingredients. The carrots still orange, the corn yellow, the tomatoes red, the beans black, brown, beige. But the time spent in the soup pot has enhanced each individual part - raising the whole into a tangled, satisfying stew. Differences still there but the flavors merged and blossomed and elevated. Celebrate the complex.
We're in a state these days. State as in situation, not location. Straining to stand out. Unwilling to bend and give. Leaves a body hungry, though. Mankind does not live by salad alone - or something like that. Maybe we ought to try being soup. Human-bean soup. Human-being soup. Soul food. Just a thought. Selah.
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