Rethinking Diversity

About a month ago I wrote a happy entry (8/6/12 – Simple Happiness) about going to Starbucks in Wilmington with David, and the quiet, peaceful feeling it led to. There was something else I wanted to write about, but I didn’t want to disturb the joy of that particular post.

One of the women who came through the checkout line, and smiled at us, was a Muslim woman wearing an abaya and hijab (that’s right, right? – the dress and headscarf but not a veil?). After she and her son passed by, I thought to myself, “Simon has never seen anyone dressed like that” (He was born in Washington DC but we moved back to NC when he was one year old, so at least, he wouldn’t remember) (And no, you’re not missing anything, Simon was not present for this event. Just David and me, but I’m guessing David is not really registering stuff like this, just yet). (Stock Photo)

Our little town here in the  mountains is pretty homogenous, ethnically and racially speaking – there are some members of minority groups around, but their numbers are small and (in my experience) not very visible. A group of Latino day laborers who gather behind the Exxon station to wait and hope for work, and a group of “International Students” who work at one of the local resorts during the summer time – this year they are largely from the Philippines.  This group is easy to distinguish – it it’s summertime, and you see a non-Caucasian person dressed in white shirt/tie/black pants, walking on the side of the road toward our one grocery store, you can bet they work for one of the hotels. Our church has outreach ministries to both these groups – (a) bringing lunch to the day laborers two days a week in winter, when work is scarce, and facilitating an ESL class; and (b) dinner, game night, and an Internet Café for the international students.

The small town I grew up in had a sizeable population of African-Americans, but not much religious diversity or any distinct ethnic communities. I didn’t know anyone who was Catholic until I was in high school; I couldn’t tell you when I first met someone who was Jewish. I was racking my brain for the first Muslim person I ever knew, assuming it would’ve been probably beyond college or grad school. Then I remembered – in my tiny town, in the even tinier Methodist church where I grew up, somehow this woman had met and married someone from Egypt. They lived in Egypt but she would visit her mom in the US about once a year or so, and I remember her dressing in an abaya & hijab-esque thing. So since a similarly dressed woman started this whole discussion, I thought, well crap there’s nowhere to go with this. But then I realized that meant that as long as Simon and David have minimal contact with a person of a different religion and culture once a year, they’ll be fine.

And I am fine, growing up as ethnic-diversity-deprived as I was. So what is my point, exactly? That’s a legitimate question, and one I have been working toward (ever so slowly) with this post. My point is, I want Simon and David to meet lots and lots of people, and to understand and internalize from an early age that lots of folks look different than we do, speak a different language and/or follow a different religion, and live differently than we do. And that God loves every single one of us exactly the same – the light of God shines in every person. And some folks have a different take on the idea of God, and some folks don’t believe in anything,  and that is fine with me and God still loves them.

(I make a poor Christian witness to those of other faiths. I think there’s enough room in the universe for lots of different possibilities).

Big(ger) cities I’ve lived in since I left my hometown: Asheville NC, Columbia SC, Charlotte NC, Belmont NC (yes it’s small but it’s bigger than where I grew up) and Washington DC. … I would simply prefer that Simon and David grow up with a knowledge and understanding of different cultures, without having to drive an hour to Asheville, or wait until summer, to so much as see someone who is not Caucasian. You know?