Time to Diversify

2015 International Expo, Milan
​Mario and I enjoying the varying dishes from around the world.

What is going on with the culture we live in? This is the question that some of us are asking in 2020. Lately and perhaps with the opportunity to slow down through COVID-19, we can now take a step back and experience the change that many of us have been advocating. It is time for Society to make DIVERSITY a prime goal.
 
I wonder if instead of making excuses for not spending money on making our communities more diversely practical or becoming emotionally uncomfortable due to change, we could simply start by consenting to it. It is painful, no doubt. However, change is here. The question is now, exactly how can we accept the change and allow groups to diversify? Here are some practical tips:

1. Accept that there has been much systemic racism throughout the world. Colonization has inspired much of today’s consequences for centuries. Knowledge has taught us to do better, however. Ethnicities have been ripped from their culture and should be encouraged to be themselves.
2. Evaluate and look for ways at your work, church, or community group to be inclusive. Bring the person that has been wrongfully identified as uneducated or unknowledgeable to the table to speak. We need to hear the diverse voices that have been wrongfully portrayed in the entertainment industry. Stop fostering the lies.
3. Do life with others that don’t look, dress or think like you. This can be as elaborate as having them over your home for dinner or as ingenuously as having a conversation of hope at the grocery store. Every one of us has something to offer to this world.

 
For generations, privilege has been readily available only to those that possess certain qualities and it needs to stop. Rather than bore you with statistics, I choose to invite you to see it for yourself. Open up and in the words of a man that is very dear to me and happens to be celebrating a birthday tomorrow, “switch your watch to the opposite wrist to experience a different perspective.” For the sake of humanity, I agree!