I worked with a guy, who grew up in the US Deep South. He told me he joined the marines after Sept 11, 2001 to (and this is the quote he used) to get revenge on, and kill the “ragheads” that attacked his country.
He told me the cure for his racist idiocy was going to Afghanistan and meeting the people there and discovering they’re just normal people like the ones he knew back home and it wrecked (and fixed) his world view.
Honestly, I wish there was some kind of travel program that was required for all children/adolescents somehow. Or at least a well-funded option.
Something where virtually everyone travels outside the country. We could start slow, and maybe just have people travel even within the country at first. If you live in the burbs or in a rural area, you are sent into some metro areas (ideally multiple states), put up in hotels and taken to various things to be seen. If you live in the cities, same thing - you visit some deep rural areas and learn something about that area.
I grew up with people that were proud of the fact that they never lived outside the county, and had not even left the state. Their whole lives. And didn’t really go into the cities within the state. They were just as provincial as you might imagine. They had all kinds of ideas about people in foreign lands, and within American cities, and within states (like California), but had never been there and didn’t even have any kind of interest in learning more via books or documentaries, etc., even if travel was too cost prohibitive.
I worked with a guy, who grew up in the US Deep South. He told me he joined the marines after Sept 11, 2001 to (and this is the quote he used) to get revenge on, and kill the “ragheads” that attacked his country.
He told me the cure for his racist idiocy was going to Afghanistan and meeting the people there and discovering they’re just normal people like the ones he knew back home and it wrecked (and fixed) his world view.
Honestly, I wish there was some kind of travel program that was required for all children/adolescents somehow. Or at least a well-funded option.
Something where virtually everyone travels outside the country. We could start slow, and maybe just have people travel even within the country at first. If you live in the burbs or in a rural area, you are sent into some metro areas (ideally multiple states), put up in hotels and taken to various things to be seen. If you live in the cities, same thing - you visit some deep rural areas and learn something about that area.
I grew up with people that were proud of the fact that they never lived outside the county, and had not even left the state. Their whole lives. And didn’t really go into the cities within the state. They were just as provincial as you might imagine. They had all kinds of ideas about people in foreign lands, and within American cities, and within states (like California), but had never been there and didn’t even have any kind of interest in learning more via books or documentaries, etc., even if travel was too cost prohibitive.