Yes I believe the country in spirit supports the melting pot, that's the reason for the country. However the country has always been racist and because of trump we now know that it's about 40% of the country. With one political party being run by White nationalists, their idea that the United States should be a white Christian country still persists. We will see what the Supreme Court does about an upcoming affirmative action case that should put an exclamation point on that issue.

The melting pot is hard to create when both current citizens and new citizens desire to marry within their respective tribes. I know black and brown people who are just as determined to marry within their own groups as many whites are.

That said, I have often noticed that the most beautiful people are often a combination of two very distinct ethnic groups. I'm also quite sure that intermarriage among very different people is more likely to create a healthier human. Maybe someday people will look at the many chronic illnesses and malformations that have developed within many dog breeds due to constant breeding within the same breed and realize a broader gene pool is more likely to create a good outcome.

I learned about the melting pot theory in elementary school. Living on a lake in Michigan, I never saw a black person in school.

Reading about racism and anti-immigrant backlash in Time magazine dispelled that notion. As did the 1968 Detroit race riots. My parents let us kids stand on the roof to watch Detroit burn 50 miles away. Dad could not go to his Detroit office for over a week.

Sadly, my grandparents were racist. Shameful. I was raised differently. My parents loved all people.

As a professional jazz trumpet player, Dad had black musicians in his band. I grew up playing with their kids.

At University of Michigan, I looked for a jazz music class where I could play flute. The only class was in the Afro-American Studies Dept. I had the only white face. Had fun playing in Jazz Workshop for two years.

Graduated and moved to Seattle. A years later, I began graduate school at Univ. of WA.

Running on a UW path to get to work, I heard my name called: "Kathleen Miller!"

Turning, I saw the tall, freckled, black professor from Jazz Workshop in Michigan. Waited for him to catch up.

"How did you remember my name?" I asked in wonder. He smiled. "Think about it," he replied.

He said during the 20 years he taught Jazz Workshop, I was the only white student who joined the class.

A "melting pot" was how it was presented to us in elementary school. At least superficially, it's an undeniable fact. What was left out of the description (which i first heard in the 1960s) was an implicit belief in a certain hierarchy. The melted elements do not form a single homogeneous mass. Rather, there is, in the minds of many, a stratification, with white men at the top, and black women on the bottom, and several layers in between. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the first serious legislative attempt (in my lifetime) to disrupt that hierarchy. The passage of the law, by itself, was not enough to mix the crucible contents. There has been pushback since the gitgo. The melting pot a work in progress.

This is an excellent point. The melting pot is still largely supported in the US. I do not agree with it. In Canada, for instance, the government gives money to ethnic groups to help them preserve their cultures rather than expecting them to assimilate. I do not recognize American culture as superior, instead valuing the diversity of culture as preferable because it is inclusive. Thanks for asking.