Well, what I'm saying is, there is often a condescending and commercial aspect to what passes for P.C. "cultural diversity." And I've met many people who feel somehow that the racism and civil rights abuses of other cultures are not to be judged from an outside point of view. I go ahead and judge them that way. I'm an American and hold these things to be self-evident. I don't care about anybody's culture and beliefs and blah blah blah. I gave away my tickets to dine with the Dalai Lama to the closest person who cared.
   
I never did understand how so many American liberals, especially writers, could sympathize with the Soviet Union, with it's free speech and artistic expression policies. It was a bunch of stupid thugs, no important difference between them, until Gorbachev, in my very intolerant opinion. Has nothing to do with communism per se, it was just a tragic bad deal.

A lesbian friend once explained to me that the spiritual shahman often is a homosexual. Yeah, that's not too different from the western world, but I guess it sounds cooler.

Remote cultures. Yes, the mountain culture nestled right here in the states is still pretty remote from general culture to the extent that it passes for funny to try to ridicule it on Saturday Night Live last month. Which would be okay if it were funny, but it wasn't. The remoteness of very near things generates exploitation of Otherness, and fear in tourist-y literature and other pop-culture garbage. It can be exploited for "interest" and it is. Look at the rap threads. People mostly hate rap for the parody of itself that it quickly turned into, when it became cool to like rap. That's P.C. diversity at work for you.

Sometimes when I'm walking in the black neighborhood where my kids go to school I get scared, because I think Yikes, what if this was a movie?!