People Like Us

The essay begins with a double metaphor, “We pay lip service to the melting pot, but we really prefer the congealing pot” (Epigraph). This phrase is especially notable for its use of one extremely common metaphor (the melting pot), which Brooks juxtaposes with an altered version of the same metaphor (the congealing pot). The description of the United States as a melting pot dates back to at least the early-20th century and commonly describes the country’s identity as a mixture of immigrants from different places. Brooks’s primary thesis in “People Like Us” is that although the United States does include people from a wide range of backgrounds, the residents are not integrated enough to have “melted” together. Instead, it is “the congealing pot”: a diverse whole that consists of distinct, separate clumps. The idea of congealing is an effective metaphor for the various points he makes throughout the article, including the idea that cultural separation is becoming more pronounced over time. A liquid may be melted together while it is hot (just as a new suburb may contain a wide mix of people), but as it ages and cools, it will congeal more and more into separate layers of distinct substances (just as a suburb will become more homogeneous over time).

The essay’s most prominent use of rhetorical questions comes at the end, when Brooks asks, “Are you really in touch with the broad diversity of American life? Do you care?” (Paragraph 19). This question challenges the reader to consider their own life in light of the data he has presented—specifically, to consider whether they actually want to promote diversity, or whether they simply want to be able to say they do—and carries with it an implication of hypocrisy meant to spur action.

Brooks uses rhetorical questions less overtly several other times in the piece. The invitation to envision one’s 12 closest friends is a form of extended rhetorical question, asking the reader to think about how their friend list conforms to or diverges from a series of specific categories. The article also presents some of its evidence as standalone rhetorical questions, such as when Brooks asks the reader, “How many times have you seen someone renounce a high-paying job or pull his child from an elite college on the grounds that these things are bad for equality?” (Paragraph 15). The implied answer—zero—backs up Brooks’s claim that we don’t actually value diversity as much as we say we do.

Overall, Brooks’s use of rhetorical questions creates the effect of directly addressing the reader. As the piece develops its central argument, rhetorical questions appear more and more. While the beginning of the piece focuses primarily on listing examples of American homogeneity, the later sections are clearly intended to make the reader consider Brooks’s arguments in the context of their own lives.