The plane turned onto the runway. And in an instant, we were off.
The outer boroughs of New York City appeared out the airplane window, followed by the towns of northern New Jersey.
Looking out at the expanse of suburbia before me, I was struck by its ubiquity.
There were houses with lush, green yards. There were residential roads winding through neighborhoods. There were shopping centers.
And there were schools. Plenty of schools.
The school buildings were mostly nondescript from 10,000 feet in the air. But they were still easy to spot. For abutting them were football fields encircled by running tracks.
A few hours later, the plane descended upon the Dallas area. I stared out the window, relishing the rare opportunity to view my home from the sky.
Yet, what I saw was strikingly similar. Homes with large yards. Residential roads winding through neighborhoods. Shopping centers.
And plenty of schools, abutted by football fields and running tracks.
Now, the scene wasn’t entirely identical. Stifling summer heat had turned the grass from green to a yellowish brown. And those football fields were surrounded by large grandstands — a testament to the Texan passion for Friday Night Lights.
Still, on the whole of it, the scene in suburban Texas wasn’t all that different from the one in suburban New Jersey.
And that similarity — it resonated.
It’s no secret that we live in a polarized society.
We seem inclined to disagreement. And the bickering we take part in can quickly spiral out of control.
As part of this behavior pattern, we tend to divvy up territory. We take the old trope of Red States and Blue States to the max, treating the places that house those with conflicting viewpoints as dens of heathens.
I am no stranger to this principle. Growing up an ardent sports fan, I despised the Boston Red Sox in pro baseball and the Florida State Seminoles in college football. I particularly loathed the fans of these teams, often arguing with them vociferously in person and online.
As the vitriol intensified, I started to shun the cities these teams played in — Boston and Tallahassee. The way I saw it, these locales were saturated with these despicable fans — so they were inherently inferior to my own stomping grounds.
Fortunately, such closed-mindedness didn’t last all that long. Late in my high school days, I visited a cousin who had moved to Boston. To my surprise, I discovered a charming, vibrant city on the bank of the Charles River — a far cry from the hellhole I’d expected.
Then in college, I traveled to Tallahassee to see my favorite team take on the Seminoles in their stadium. Florida’s capital was less charming than Massachusetts’ was, but it still seemed like a pleasant enough southern town.
Surprisingly, I even hit it off with some Florida State fans while tailgating. We shared brews and snacks, if not allegiances.
The experience was enlightening, and it dampened my zeal to judge territory outside my own backyard. Yet, the principle of us versus them never quite went away.
After moving to Texas, I found myself othering the area I’d come from. While I wasn’t a native Texan, I was fully committed to my new home. As such, I felt obligated to prove that I wasn’t a carpetbagger.
Family and friends back north howled at this development. Yet, many of them had questioned my decision to move to Texas in the first place. They had viewed it as a tacit approval for the Lone Star State’s most extreme stereotypes. And this had left a chip on my shoulder.
Over time, I softened my stance. But the environment around me went in the other direction.
Polarization intensified, spurred on by the isolating effects of a global pandemic. Botched responses to extreme weather turned a critical eye on Texas’ infrastructure. And the state’s conservative leaning political decision turned downright radical.
With all these developments, it was hard not to see other corners of the country as different. Sure, I could get food from the same chain restaurants in the Northeast or Midwest that I could in Texas. And people spoke the same language in Denver as they did in Dallas. But how much else was really in common?
It took that airplane flight, and the revelation about high school football fields, for me to realize just how similar we all still are.
It’s a realization that could use a broader audience.
North of the border, the drivers travel at NASCAR speeds. Distances between cities are longer, people are shorter, and temperatures that make shiver leave the locals sweltering.
None of this is true, of course. At least not as written.
You see, Canada uses the Metric system, while that United States does not. And that leads to some novel forms of measurement.
Kilometers take the place of miles. Meters take the place of feet. And Celsius takes the place of Fahrenheit.
People aren’t really shorter, or driving faster, or wilting around in frigid conditions in Canada. It just seems that way if we take Metric measurements at American standards.
We must do some math to reconcile these discrepancies. And yet, millions of Americans have visited our neighbors up north over the years. And relatively few of them have gotten completely waylaid due to the Metric system.
If we can fare so well in a land where the distance markers — and much more — vary from our norms, why can’t we find the shades of similarity in our own nation?
Instead of pitting Texas against New Jersey, for instance, we can note that high schoolers in both states play football on the same sized gridiron.
This shift in focus won’t wipe away our differences. They’re still out there, and they’re too prominent to paint over.
But it can help us avert the toxic spiral of divisiveness. It can keep hyper-partisanship in check. It can take the teeth out of othering.
These are outcomes we should yearn for. More than that, they’re outcomes our society needs.
So, let’s tamp down the rhetoric. Let’s respect our differences. And let’s shift the spotlight to shades of similarity.
It starts with us.