Close your eyes and try imagining the following situation. Think of a school cafeteria packed with strangers. It is your first day in the school so you are standing alone in front of the entrance with your lunch box in one hand, looking for a table you want to join and have lunch together. You begin taking a look at the nearest four tables: in table one, you see a girl wearing hijab and having hummus; in table two, four caucasian girls are holding their hands together while saying “Lord God, Heavenly Father, bless us and..”; in table three, bunch of Asian-looking students are chatting with a language you have never heard of; and in table four, three African-American boys with box T-shirts and baseball caps are having a meal while listening to hip-hop music. Now, if you have to join one of them and have lunch together, which table would you like to choose?
Let me make a guess. If you are Christian or caucasian, you are most likely to go to table two. If you are Muslim, table one will be your choice. If you are Asian, you will first approach table three and if you are African-American, you will probably have lunch with the three African-American boys in table four.
If you cannot agree with this idea of mine, let's imagine a different scenario. Forget about having lunch together but ask yourself ‘who among them will you find most comfortable when having a conversation for more than 30 minutes’. Now, I am even more sure that my previous guess will be the case.
It is a human nature to feel comfortable with what we are used to. We are naturally more inclined to things or ideas that we grew up with, such as religion, ethnicity, or even nationality. It is very difficult for a boy who grew up in a traditional Catholic family and went to church every Sunday morning to approach a transgender, atheist Asian boy who has ten tattoos on his arms. For a Muslim girl who always wear hijab and never smoke or drink, an African-American girl who loves to throw party every weekend is definitely not an easy target to interact with. This is not some thing special or peculiar. We human beings just feel more relaxed with people who are more likely to understand us and feel what we feel.
However, I personally think that this is changing dramatically these days thanks to one of the most significant invention of human history: education.
Starting from the 1960s, humanity’s overall standard of living improved dramatically. Less people were dying with hunger and more people were affluent enough to step away from their daily chores and think about things that were considered luxurious in the past. Leisure, human rights, suffrages, and most importantly, EDUCATION. The number of public schools around the world soared while college education became something common. Look around yourself nowadays, more than half of the people you encounter in a single day will probably have graduated from high school. High school students these days regard college as something completely ordinary since they are accessible, approachable, and even considered necessary. This led to the increase in the number of people who received the so-called high education; in other words, by completing their 20-year journey in schools and universities, most of the people these days possess certain level of knowledge inside themselves. Compared to the past when there was a huge gap between people’s education levels, we all are now residing in a somewhat similar level.
Therefore, compared to the past, we are now more open to interact with people who look different, speak different, and think different since there is a considerable amount of certainty that a person in front of me will have a similar level of knowledge and attainment acquired through education. In other words, a Muslim girl is less afraid to approach an African-American girl and start a conversation while an Asian boy can confidently initiate an interaction with a Scandinavian girl as we are now living in the world where education is regarded as fundamental rights of human being.
This does not mean that discrimination and hostilities toward the things that we are not used to—xenophobia and racism, for example—are eliminated. We are still living in the world where Asian woman is beaten up in the middle of the street just because she looks Asian and an African-American man dies due to police violence. Indeed, fear towards differentness still exists. However, we also have to acknowledge that this incomparably high level of openness is something our ancestors could not even dream about. Thanks to the growth of education, we are now living in a cosmopolitan world where most of—not all of, unfortunately—people have a capacity to overcome their fear towards differentness. As history shows us, I believe that things will slowly but constantly improve as education becomes even more normal and diminishes our natural fear towards the unknown.