I grew up in Southern California and it is truly a melting pot and extremely diverse, however that that doesn't always breed unity or even acceptance. I grew up immersed in this culture and I would not have said I was prejudiced but I was. I had a certain amount of resentment for other races and religions because while I grew up with a very immersive multi cultural experience, I never really got to know people from these diverse cultures.
The experiences that I had in my youth in California exposed me to most every race, religion, culture, and lifestyle imaginable. I remember going to festivals and fairs that were centered around music and food of multiple cultures and loving the experience. However, when I went home and to my everyday life it was overwhelmingly full of people who looked, talked and lived just like me. There was a disconnect for me, I could love and enjoy multiple cultural experiences and even enjoy the people I met, however they were always kept at arm’s length.
I wouldn’t experience true
diversity until I moved here to Muncie. It started with a friend I met at
church, this friendship would stretch me and send me down a wonderful path to
diversity. This friend was a part of a mixed marriage and they shared a family
with both mixed and black children. This was a new experience to bring into my
normal life I had not really gotten close to people whose experiences were so
much different than mine. These experiences opened my eyes to perspectives I
had not ever even thought about, namely the many prejudices and biases that
people of color experience daily. I saw these first hand when I went to the convenience
store with their son who was 15 at the time and noticed how the cashier watched
him like a hawk as opposed to the way he all but ignored my son. These experiences
began to broaden my understanding of diversity
These experiences have culminated
in a group my friend started called Reconciliation Achieved Through Community Engagement
or R.A.C.E for short. This group which was started in response to the shootings
by police of young black men. However, the work of this group has grown from
this original purpose to encompass work with the local Muslim community as well
as the local LGBTQ community. These events have afforded me as well as my
family the opportunity to get to know many diverse people and has stretched my
personal experience, by being with these people, I have met many wonderful
people whose experiences have taught me so much.
My diversity experiences have
helped shape me into the man I am today and led me down paths that I could at
one time in my life would have seemed unreal or scary. For me diversity is more
than simply experiencing different cultures or being around people different
than me. Diversity is about a shared life, an opportunity to know people whose
lives might look very little like mine. I desire to continue down this path and
to continue to be challenged and stretch in my journey of diversity.
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