It is interesting how things stick with us like unpacked boxes that we move from place to place, always meaning to get to them some day.
In preparation for this editorial on diversity, I have traveled over 14 years through time to get to this moment as I stare at the blinking cursor.
I flash back to a hot summer afternoon watching a fax roll off the printer. The message arrived with big bold lettering, announcing a diversity awareness event presented by a local business group charged with promoting the economic welfare in our region.
Suddenly a light came on in my head and I began to feel my core body temp rise.
I'm pretty sure before I noticed this announcement that there had been many other diversity events before, but today this one really stuck out. It wasn't what was being said as much as what was not being recognized.
Over the years as I worked or volunteered within the community, I would also toss around this word, always hoping that by saying it some magic might happen.
While small gains would appear here and there within the small womb-like environments most of us create around us, I continued to receive diversity event invitations, always with what was not being said making me feel more frustrated.
Some years later, it would only take a couple of beers at a downtown watering hole for the dam to break.
I was sharing a beer with someone I thought at the time was a visiting friend of a friend who later turned out to be an out-of-town author brought to Grand Rapids to conduct a study on our city.
If he wanted a blind study, then he found his perfect subject as I let unfurl the frustration that had built up over the years from trying to read between the lines.
"This word diversity, which is carelessly tossed about in our community, is driving me crazy," I barked. "It has been nearly two decades since I noticed it, and the fax invites keep rolling in announcing yet again another diversity program, when what they really are saying is we are only going to address the topic of race."
The author who would eventually become a friend laughed at my outburst as I caught my breath, but I was very serious because I do care deeply about the topic of inclusion. I want our community to be more welcoming and at the same time, dare to talk about those topics that might makes us uncomfortable.
While it is a desirable trait to want to be in a diverse city, the truth is many on the ground have moved beyond the eye-rolling-repeat-programming of our leaders and have silently begun to create what some have referred to as the super diverse culture shift -- a point where a community begins to recognize and value individuality above the tactics some may use to separate us.
I'm not a social scientist, but I am guessing that if a society can adapt quickly to an ever-evolving tech world producing a new gadget or computer app every day, then surely we can find a way to take our blinders off and see we are moving much faster down this road toward diversity. Our fears of the unknown or not traveled roads must begin to give way to new kinds of programming within our community that keep pace with this plugged-in evolving world.
This is not to say that race issues are unimportant. You better believe they are, because we still have a problem as humans trying to neatly pack people into categories like we organize our Facebook friends.
As we move past the limits of ethnic boundaries, we must actively begin to acknowledge and warmly embrace the differences within the individual.
Every day, we are passing each other on our different life paths, sharing the sidewalks of our city. We cross paths with different races and also people who have issues of accessibility, generational issues like ageism, who hail from diverse economic backgrounds and even present a gender orientation or identification very different from our own.
Statistically in the United States, where only 4% of us live in integrated communities, we do mingle within a variety of cultures each day, meaning now more than ever that even if we do not live next door to someone who may not fit nicely in our group, we should operate as if they do.
History has shown us one constant and that is we are always in some state of change. The gated walls of the past do begin to crumble as the foreign becomes familiar.
Former Roman Catholic nun and 2008 TED prize winner Karen Armstrong has drawn from her scholarly works in comparative religion and created a
Charter for Compassion where she calls upon the world to embrace a divine teaching that is a part of almost each and every religion: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."
When we engage people through compassionate contact and meaningful interaction within our society, we dissolve fears and rewrite our futures for the better as a new value system emerges. Misinformation and prejudice have no other choice but to fall by the wayside in light of this revelation.
I do have faith that we are a community on the brink of greatness, but only if we are able to "do unto others" by providing a welcoming place for others to call their home, too.
People in a modern world have many choices when considering where to live or make a career. Migration is a big part of who we are now as humans so how we treat an outsider within our midst will be of even greater importance.
And while the quote below from the Pulitzer Prize winning play "Angels in America" was addressing the early days of AIDS, I find this quote still just as powerful in recognizing the goals of diversity and the reason our collective and expansive voices are still needed today.
"The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come."
The Future Needs All of Us (to live compassionately.)
Tommy Allen, Lifestyle Editor
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