I tend to believe that New Yorkers tend to forget about the rest of that land-mass out there called the United States. To paraphrase from a great musical, “New York is the center of everything.” To which the reply is, “New York is the center of New York.”
That may be a bit extreme, but people seem to forget that there is an entire country outside of this little island called Manhattan.

I’m originally from Ohio; all of the prejudice, racial slurs and stereotypes I know I learned in NYC!!

Progress is certainly being made, but in many ways, this city is NOT the “melting pot” it often claims to be. Immigrants often stay within their own, closed communities, except for when they take public transportation. 2nd and 3rd generation citizens refer to themselves as “Italian” or “Ukrainian” or “Irish” or “Dominican” rather than AMERICAN, even though they may have never traveled out of New York City. We are a country, and city, in search of an identity.

I think advertisers would do well to remember that there is a lot of land, and a lot of consumers, between NYC and LA; these consumers are often already more accepting of diversity than consumers residing in NY & LA.

Sighting Harold & Kumar… was very apt. It is truly refreshing, and more realistic in a lot of ways, to see people of ethnic diversity acting like AMERICANS. Not even Americans, but PEOPLE. HUMANS.

Often it feels like the entire world is searching for a new, global identity. In a world where there are organizations devoted to preserving languages that are dying out, people are struggling to hold on to some form of identity and history.

We live in interesting times, folks…

…Peace!