A land of opportunity

Roger Cohen:

A sentence I wrote earlier this month has provoked much criticism: “I still believe the greatest strength of America, its core advantage over the old world, is its lack of interest in where you’re from and consuming interest in what you can do.”

Wrong, I was told by hundreds of readers who referred to decades of segregation, glass ceilings for African-Americans, quotas for Jews at Ivy League schools that persisted at least into the 1960s, past exclusionary practices at New York law firms, U.S. villages once unperturbed by signs saying “A Gentile Subdivision” and other forms of prejudice.

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I think his statement is correct. Sure there are those who have prejudice still. I have run into people who did not like Texans for some reason. Galveston developed a "Born on the Island" mentality that chased a lot of talented people to Houston where they were welcomed with open arms.

When I was an undergraduate I had a Jewish friend who was a member of a Jewish fraternity. For a long time it did not occur to me that he would not have been invited to be in one of the more traditional fraternities.

Since I had little interest in belonging to a fraternity it just did not matter to me. I don't think my university experience suffered from not belonging to one. When I graduated in three years time I joined the best fraternity in the world--the United States Marines. I took my "senior trip" to Vietnam. I never regretted it.

It was truly on organization interested in what you could do. It still is.