Melting Pot Vs Salad Bowl

1321 Words6 Pages
American society is founded on the idea that America is a place of refuge for all those who seek a place to express themselves freely as individuals as protected by the Bill of Rights. Many people would assume that this would create a society that either tolerates or accepts multiple diverging cultures, ideas, and religions. However, the majority of news reports from FOX and CNN seems to employ every opportunity to emphasize on the fractures and dysfunctions of our society. Some Americans view others through a lens of their own prejudice instead of laying aside their personal judgments to seek to understand where the other person is coming from and trying to find a common ground. In “Ghetto Bitches, China Dolls, and Cha Cha Divas”, a chapter…show more content…
Each individual would need to lay aside judgments and assumptions about cultural viewpoints, decide to seek to understand the viewpoints of others,and then to be understood rather than the reverse of seeking to be understood before knowing where others come from. In this environment either the Melting Pot ideal or the Salad Bowl ideal would be able to manifest itself or they could blend together and form a better system where the pros of both exist while the cons fade into the background. All three of these ideals are possible; meaning that they are able to be done. However, the gap between where American society is currently and where the environment of society would allow those ideals to manifest is not a plausible rift to transverse either immediately or the short term of 10 years or so, because the factors of the idealistic world of the Melting Pot or the Salad Bowl are placed on pause every time the television plays a television show the creates or enforces stereotypes. America’s Next Top Model is a great example of this because the judges pigeonhole African American contestants into categories of “Black [bitches]” and Asian Americans are assumed to be all one race (Pozner 399). Something to keep in mind is that not all of the television shows that perpetuate stereotypes are reality television shows. Actually, there are other American television shows that are fictional and still enforce stereotypes; some examples of television stereotyping outside reality television are Mike and Tina from Glee and Rajesh from The Big Bang

    More about Melting Pot Vs Salad Bowl

      Open Document