DIVERSITY is defined as differences among people with respect to age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and other human differences.

BUT WHAT IS DIVERSITY?
Most people think diversity means celebrating different international identities. But
diversity also encompasses all the differences among groups in the U.S. Some people in the United States have experiences with international cultural diversity when they travel to other countries to study or visit or when they have extensive interactions with newly arrived immigrant groups. But these experiences, if limited, can lead to the “tourist approach” to diversity, only examining different cultures from their most evident manifestations: food, celebrations, dance, etc.

Many white people in the United States were reared with television and film images of people in other countries, particularly Africa, that were shaped and framed from the white perspective only. Africans, in stories like Tarzan, were shown in inferior roles to white people. This approach negates genuine relationships and knowing the depth and substance of another culture. It can also lead people to avoid learning about differences within the domestic United States. Some people are more willing to go to another country than to bridge the divisions in their own communities.

PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES
One common myth is that by talking about and examining our differences, we are encouraging divisions. So when we discuss differences, we need to consider not only how we are different but also how we are treated because of our differences. Clearly, differences themselves are not the only issue; the value we place on differences presents more challenges.

THE FOLLOWING ASSUMPTIONS HELP US UNDERSTAND OURSELVES AND HOW WE LEARNED OUR ROLES AS MEMBER OF GROUPS:
• All people are born with an enormous capacity to be powerful, loving, caring, cooperative, creative, curious, and intelligent.

• We have learned the “isms” (all the forms of social oppression). We can’t be blamed for having learned them because we got the information when we were young people.

• As adults we now have responsibility to change.

• The “isms” hurt all of us—the oppressor as well as the oppressed.

• We all have the experience of being in both dominant and excluded groups, so we have knowledge about both sides.

• We are taught not to see the ways we are in roles, so our behavior appears “normal” and “natural.”

• We may learn to respond to differences with guilt and pity. Guilt leads to inaction,
and pity does not allow us to see the strengths in other identities.

CHANGING FROM AGENT TO ALLY
In our dominant roles, we can choose to act on the misinformation that we received and be an agent of the continued perpetuation of the system of inequality or we can be an ally and work to change the way we think and act. The process of moving from agent to ally is long. It requires commitment and conscious behavior. It means making mistakes and continuing to act in alliance with people in target groups.

To become allies, people need to overcome their fears of rejection by members of
their own group and their learned powerlessness in their excluded identities.


Kathy Castania "What is Diversity"