Diversity Dialogue
On Wednesday I attended a monthly diversity dialogue hosted by the YWCA. It focused on history and the origins of racism. I was extremely impressed and shocked by the amount of stuff I am not aware of that stems back to why we are the way we are and why America is the way it is.
Here are a few points from the session that blew me away. Please cross reference any of these points if you want. I’m just sharing them as they were shared to me.
- History is being taught poorly or better yet, not properly in US classrooms. Research has been done in the past couple years that profile 6 major history text books being used by the majority of history classrooms across the country. Facts in those books have been crossed reference to actual historical records and the study is showing that the wrong things are being taught
- Racial prejudice has only been around for the past couple hundred years
- Thought to be brought on by religious theologians and historians in the early 1800’s as the began swaying the religious circles with their understand of the scriptures. The difference between dark and light people
- The rise of science, especially in the scientific realm of classification, plays a major part. In the 1800’s, scientists began studying skin colors and body compositions and began segmenting people into groups
- For the past 80 years, science has proven that genetically, we’re all the same regardless of race or country of origin. We all are the same.
- Not until 1967 did all states allow mixed race marriages. It was the whites that were restricted in an attempt to keep the white race “pure."
This was an extremely important conversation to be a part of I thought. I’m glad I went. I don’t think about this issue in our society as much as I should, but it effects us every day whether we’re aware of it or not. Think about how you look at some people or interact with people that are different than you.
One last thing I noticed was that I was the only male there out of 20 people. Not sure what that fully means, but it seems to me that we guys don’t always take things like this seriously.. come on guys!
