Cultural tolerance is a term that
encompasses and encourages various forms of inter-cultural dialogue
and respect for diversity. Thus, when a physicist is able to talk
calmly and politely to a political scientist, this is an example of
"cultural tolerance".
Cultural tolerance is understanding
that there are different ways of doing things and that if we are to
get along peacefully in this world that we must allow for these
differences in spite of the fact that our way is always the
best way. It would be better for all foreigners to learn to do
things our way but it isn't practical to do so when they first
arrive. Thus it is important to be patient and tolerant when
dealing with visitors and new arrivals from other places. We must
explain the way we do things around here and only then throw them in
jail or beat them up if they do things differently.
I have a favorite anecdote
demonstrating excellent cultural tolerance on the part of a
representative of law and order here in Los Angeles, a member of the
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) a fine institution noted
throughout the world for its own special style of corruption and
racism. This story demonstrates that they can act with tolerance
towards visitors in an enlightened and possibly even humororous
fashion. A visitor from a very far away place, the north side of
Chicago, came to our fair city and with complete innocence and
naivete got himself into serious trouble.
The person was my favorite uncle
visiting us and his mother, my grandmother, from Chicago. The time
period must have been the mid 1960's. There are many good things I
can say about my uncle, he was one of my favorite people in the
world: a successful businessman, an intellectual, the president of
his reform temple in Highland Park, Illinois, and a very nice man,
married to a classic jewish intellectual neurotic woman who was also
one of my favorite people in the world.
We were coming back from somewhere,
probably to visit my grandmother, when the problems began. He was
driving and did so with an enthusiastic driving procedure which
consisted of driving at high speeds on the freeway while moving from
lane to lane at will and turning his head around to talk to us, his
favorite nephews, cowering in the back seat of the car. We were
saved from probable death or disfigurement by a police officer who
pulled him over and asked to see his driver's license.
And then my uncle got himself into
really big trouble.
You see, in Chicago when something like
this happens, there is a standard procedure. And that is what my
uncle proceeded to do: which was to hand the police officer his
driver's license with $100 bill attached. My guess is that he did
not give it a second thought. With his driving skills, I figured, he
had probably done this many times before in Chicago.
The police officer looked at the
driver's license and "honorarium" and said: "Ah, Mr.
Hanig, I see you are from Chicago. Put your money away and never do
that again and I won't put you in jail this time".
In retrospect, I think that was a very
humorous thing for the police officer to say and that my uncle was
very lucky. He could easily have spent the afternoon in LA County
Jail.
You see, in this town, you do not try
to bribe individual police officers. That would be an incredibly
stupid thing to do. The way it works here, as I understand it, is
that you bribe the top guy, the Chief of Police, or the Mayor or
someone like that. Then they do what needs to be done.
I cherish the memory of the police
officer recognizing that, being from Chicago, the driver thought that bribing a
police officer was a normal thing to do and making allowances for this visitor from a distant place.
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