Come June, let's give every last one of our Hamilton County seniors a graduation gift.
A new passport.
"Travel changes us," said Eleanor McCallie Cooper. "Tremendously."
Of all the things said during Tuesday's McKee Learning Lunch, those four words -- spoken while we stood in line, near the salad and baked ziti -- are among the most memorable and true. Anyone who has traveled past borders, comfort zones and exchange rates knows the humility and transformative magic that come by encountering people we initially believe to be different yet sweetly find are very much the same.
Travel, especially among young people, dilutes so many ills that fester into adulthood, like fear, insular thinking and aggression. (Here's to you, Carisch family.) Travel teaches us that humanity trumps patriotism, especially on a planet of nearly 7 billion.
"There is no such thing as normal," said Christian Hoeferle, of Hoeferle Consulting. "There are 6.5 billion different sets of normal."
Hoeferle was one of 30 or so participants in this winter's McKee Lunch, a seasonal event that connects citizens with important questions and issues. In the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga's Chickamauga Room, a melting pot of nonprofit leaders, attorneys, real estate agents, Rotary Club presidents, teachers and entrepreneurs gathered to talk about a most important question facing our city.
"How global should our local community be?" asked Dr. Jim Tucker, holder of UTC's McKee Chair of Excellence in Learning.
One woman spoke of her grandparents, who immigrated here without even knowing how to sign their name.
Another woman spoke of being adopted from Pakistan.
One woman spoke of going to elementary school in Japan, middle school in Taiwan and ...
"High school in Hixson, Tennessee," she said.
It was beautiful, all this sameness and difference.
"Our place in the world," said Chantelle Roberson, attorney for BlueCross BlueShield and Marshall Memorial Fellow.
And my, how Chattanooga's place in the world has grown.
In the last 10 years, we have seen a Great Migration of foreign investment to Chattanooga. VW. Alstom. Billions of dollars from companies headquartered on the far side of the international date line.
We feel proud because of this.
We should also feel embarrassed.
We are squandering this never-before opportunity to use such foreign investment as a vehicle to a greater end: the inclusion and immersion of diversity and global thought into our city.
On the very day six years ago when VW announced its intentions to locate here, we should have also begun thinking in big and public ways about how to gracefully and strategically recraft our city's identity into an international one.
Otherwise, what we're doing is theft: we only want foreign investment, not culture. It's subtle hegemony and hubris.
I'm not just talking German; our growing Hispanic community is literally changing the face of some Chattanooga neighborhoods. To be Chattanoogan means to be Costa Rican, Somali, Iraqi, Senegalese, and I'm just getting started.
"Forty-five countries are represented and 75 languages spoken in Hamilton County schools," one woman said. "We're the city of 75 languages."
We need something to tie it all together.
"A center that relates both the business and cultural," someone said.
Picture it: a brick and mortar headquarters run by vibrant and well-traveled people who have the passion and know-how to welcome immigrants, refugees, politicians, business leaders, teachers, pastors and families together. Like our own U.N., it could celebrate, connect, comfort and challenge this changing face of Chattanooga.
(I formally nominate Eleanor Cooper to run this yet-to-be-built center. Stephen Culp said he agrees.)
The purpose is not to get more jobs.
But to get more humanity.
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.