seemed content to play secular protestants.One noticed the romanticism in the competition among members of"minority groups"to claim the status of Primary Victim.To Americans unconfident of their common identity,minority standing became a way ofasserting individuality.Middle-class Americans-men and women clearly not the primary victims of social oppression-brandished their suffering with exuberance. 19 The dream of a single society probably died with The Ed Sullivan Show.The reality of America persists.Teenagers pass through big-city high schools banded in racial groups,their collars turned up to a uniform shrug.But then they graduate to jobs at the phone company or in banks,where they end up working alongside people unlike themselves.Typists and tellers walk out together at lunchtime. 20 It is easier for us as Americans to believe the obvious fact of our separateness-easier to imagine the black and white Americans prophesied by the Kerner report(broken glass,street fires) than to recognize the reality of a city street at lunchtime.Americans are wedded by proximity to a common culture.The panhandler at one corner is related to the pamphleteer at the next who is related to the banker who is kin to the Chinese old man wearing an MIT sweatshirt.In any true national history,Thomas Jefferson begets Martin Luther King,Jr.,who begets the Gray Panthers.It is because we lack a vision of ourselves entire-the city street is crowded and we are each preoccupied with finding our way home-that we lack an appropriate hymn.seemed content to play secular protestants. One noticed the romanticism in the competition among members of “minority groups” to claim the status of Primary Victim. To Americans unconfident of their common identity, minority standing became a way of asserting individuality. Middle-class Americans—men and women clearly not the primary victims of social oppression—brandished their suffering with exuberance. 19 The dream of a single society probably died with The Ed Sullivan Show. The reality of America persists. Teenagers pass through big-city high schools banded in racial groups, their collars turned up to a uniform shrug. But then they graduate to jobs at the phone company or in banks, where they end up working alongside people unlike themselves. Typists and tellers walk out together at lunchtime. 20 It is easier for us as Americans to believe the obvious fact of our separateness—easier to imagine the black and white Americans prophesied by the Kerner report (broken glass, street fires)— than to recognize the reality of a city street at lunchtime. Americans are wedded by proximity to a common culture. The panhandler at one corner is related to the pamphleteer at the next who is related to the banker who is kin to the Chinese old man wearing an MIT sweatshirt. In any true national history, Thomas Jefferson begets Martin Luther King, Jr., who begets the Gray Panthers. It is because we lack a vision of ourselves entire – the city street is crowded and we are each preoccupied with finding our way home – that we lack an appropriate hymn