I recently read an interesting research article (an interesting research article is becoming an oxymoron; therefore, I immediately dwelled on it), which was conducted during the 1960s and 1980s in Chicago’s Southwest Side neighbourhoods. This particular region and the period are quite famous for the racial change that the state initiated to integrate black and white people into the previously white-segregated community. Now the interesting part is that the white people used specific and repetitive narratives to strongly emphasise how homogeneity is essential to maintaining harmony and peace in the community.
The whites were telling stories of their pleasant childhood in the communities, like how they gathered for a baseball game and how anyone could babysit anyone’s kid. These narratives directly portray the white community as a closely knit, fun-loving, and safe community. Now the added layer in the element is the story-framing tense. Every single phrase was in the past tense, which symbolically portrayed black people as unsafe to the community to the bare minimum. When you have a look at the narratives, you may internally feel that the white people’s narratives were genuine if you never knew the black discrimination history and in fact, you may also internally nod your head as we love homogeneity to an extent. We live in like-minded communities, so we stick with them. That’s why we see several Indian communities in foreign lands, as are the other expatriates and migrants. If we don’t stick with our own culture, we completely become them, meaning we become cultural chameleons. Either way, we embrace “oneness,” and we can see several initiatives from the state and the central bodies to inculcate some homogeneity in our societies. Even organisations call for a “one-company culture.” This may again only render superficial solutions considering the dynamic nature of work performed by different sets of employees.
Say, a conventionally running Indian firm urges innovation and recruits technical experts from top players in the market for their “Research and Development” team. These experts enter the organisation, build up transformative frameworks, and show great potential. However, the organisation is unhappy and rather shocked by the productivity decline curve and the number of resignations, especially from these experts, who have been receiving generous pay compared to other teams. The exit interview showed a pattern, though—a very simple pattern. The experts quit because they were denied the work-from-home flexibility arrangement option. And HR as well as the boss were perplexed and clueless at this dead end. All the other team members, if at all they quit, their reasons have never been anything closer to the location of work. Assessing the value addition and the resource potential, HR and the boss badly wanted to reverse the situation, but the ‘one company culture’ didn’t allow them to do it. At the end of the day, the firm lost the critical resource, and yes, the money too. So, that’s how homogeneity in many ways can go both ways, just like a planned family vacation.
We should understand that the concept of homogeneity cannot always represent oneness as it may destroy the diversity element in society.
By the way, if you would like to know more about how oneness is not created among the communities where homogeneity is celebrated, you should definitely imprint your mind on Jhumpa Lahiri’s Roman Stories. Especially, a diamond in the book is “Well Lit Home.” Generally, we cry, and our hearts sink if we read stories where people die, experience tragic, unbearable life experiences, or lose a loved one. But this particular story is not that; it doesn’t kill anyone; it tells you how ostracism feels: from the bottom of the mines. Your stomach would turn, you can’t sleep, you can’t unhear the voice of that lonely man and the loneliness of the faraway wife, and you cannot easily forget the streets, especially the underpass. If at all sleep accompanies you, once you are awake, I am sure your mind will be at peace when you see the rush of golden light passing through the windows of your well-lit home.
Disclaimer: All Opinions on the post are personal.
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