THE MELTING POT MYTH

We will always have stereotypes because it is a human attempt put into categories. to remember and understand.
The concept, like so many other important ones, was missed by the limited scope of the 'experts'.  They missed that ethnicity involves both conscious and unconscious processes which fulfill the need for security, identity and a sense of historical continuity.  The language and customs of a culture determine that which gets labeled as a problem.  Police are not taught to distinguish, or in fact to even question this, as they are too concretely bound to maintain laws which are rigid and leave little room for exceptions or interpretation.  Thus, sociologists were wrong with the melting pot theory and were destructive to families by not looking at the belief systems brought by different cultures and their religions.

Freud had early psychologists focusing for too long only on the parenting...more often only to mothering. Many more parameters are needed.  Some of the parameters to be explored along with ethnicity are religion, country of origin, language, class, color, socio-economic, and intelligence/educational level.  One must not forget the differences within groups and that is no such entity as 'the black family', 'the Jewish family',. 'the poor family' or 'the rich family.'. Yet people continue to try to make diagnostic and descriptive labels.



When children are caught between the value system of two opposing dictates, normal to their family is often considered not normal outside the family...especially to those mental health professionals who have the presumption to define 'normal' for us all.  At times these value systems conflict with the laws of our land.  We had an example of a young woman in Florida a few years ago who insisted on covering her face, refusing to have her picture taken for a driver's license.  Since the picture ios required by law for identification, her cultural dictate was disallowed if she wanted to drive a vehicle.

to be continued......