I went to a local coffee shop one Saturday morning, desperate for some caffeine and a quiet place away from the chaos of my house (both the people and stuff) to get some work done. With my laptop open and headphones on, I was fully prepared to completely disappear into grading my Sports Law students’ first draft advocacy papers for the rest of the day.
But about an hour and one iced latte into my camp out, something caught my attention. Two older white men had walked into the coffee shop and were ordering at the counter. One began signing to the worker – a young woman wearing a hijab – and, without missing a beat, she signed back. What followed was this seemingly natural exchange, made up of some signing, some typing on a cell phone, and plenty of patient back-and-forth until the order was exactly right.
I’m not sure why this scene captivated me the way it did. Maybe it was the care and grace these three people were showing each other? But it caused me to do two things. First, I immediately texted my friends, “Y’all, I’m watching the most reaffirming human interaction.” Second, I turned down my music and paid attention to what else was going on around me.
This particular coffee shop is a fairly small place – the kind where the tables are close together, and you can’t help but overhear the conversation next to you. But what I noticed first and foremost was who was there. An interracial couple with their young child face deep in a muffin. A lesbian couple holding hands and laughing. An Indian family checking out the drink menu while a Black couple in matching Ball State gear – clearly on their way to cheer on the Cardinals – waited for their order. A few white women with workout clothes and babies in strollers occupied the oversized couch. And a cluster of young 20-somethings celebrating a birthday with coffee and gift bags.
There were people speaking different languages and of different sexual orientations. Some were dressed up, and others were dressed down. The faces were of different races and ethnicities. Some people were alone while others were laughing in groups. A few folks just passed through briefly, grabbing a coffee to go on their way to the next spot.
I sat there thinking: Isn’t this exactly what life is supposed to look like?
I know this sounds simple and maybe even naive. But here was this small coffee shop on an ordinary Saturday morning full of so many different types of people. Different languages, different families, different faiths, different ways of moving through the world … and yet we all ended up in the same place, drinking the same coffee, minding our own business, and respecting each other’s. Nobody was performing. Nobody was making a point. It was just a bunch of humans living their lives.
Since that Saturday, I often find myself going back to the coffee shop in my mind when I’m confronted with the constant narrative of otherness that has become so pervasive (again? still?) in America over the last decade. Being in that room with all those people, all those experiences, all those differences coexisting without effort or fanfare reminds me that I know one thing with complete certainty.
Diversity isn’t the problem. It’s the whole point. Not sameness. Not uniformity. Not a country that looks and sounds and prays like one thing. In fact, that Saturday in the coffee shop was maybe one of the most American things I’ve ever been a part of – a patchwork of people with different stories, faces, and purposes, blending together without even trying. It was just a multitude of humans who wanted to drink a good cup of coffee.
You will never convince me that experiences like this – being in a place filled with people of all faiths, skin colors, backgrounds, and experiences – are a threat to America’s greatness. They are the absolute definition of it.
