Diversity, fried twinkies, and America

The Minnesota State Fair is one of the highlights of the year for me. I love the fair. I like looking at farm equipment, cows, and all the various booths hawking their products, politics and various cheap crap. At the fair, you can find fried twinkies, alligator on a stick, ostrich, elk burgers, corn on the cob, pickel dogs, and most every manner of ethnic food you can think of.

If you want diversity, then go to the fair. The State Fair has real diversity, not the warmed over facade they call diversity in college. At the fair, you will see Democrats and Republicans, farmers and city folk, union members, entrapreneuers and big businesses. Mensa has a booth, as do the boy scouts. You can talk to the Green Party and various church groups. You can hear pitchmen hawking knives, mops, rags, and of course, the Vita-Mix. There is a building for art and one for technology. You can hear live music everywhere.

When people talk about diversity, most people talk about “celebrating” and “valuing” it. However, if you look at the diversity that is walking around the fairgrounds, you can see the underside of it all. It appears that diversity has a big gut, lots of tatoos, and smells really bad when walking around in the sun for several hours.

There is no celebration of the diversity at the fair, because its just taken as a given. I suppose that’s the great part about it. If your not dwelling on it, your not shooting each other. I think most people aren’t really too interestsed in dwelling on the differences of those around them. They’re far too interested in riding on the midway rides, eating fried food on sticks, and watching bands that we’re past their prime 20 years ago.

For better and for worse, the fair is uniquely American.