Center for Conflict Resolution

Are You Ready For Diversity?

By Garry Bailey, Ph.D.

Developments in transportation and communication technology make exploring our world easier and faster than ever.  More people travel to exotic locations than ever before and satellites give us the ability to watch any major event around the world unfold.  We are a people with the ability to know about a great diverse world.  And knowing is not enough.  We want to bring diversity into our midst.  Have you ever thought that it would be great to have more diversity in your workplace, school, or church?  The thought of being able to experience different things is often attractive to people.  I’ve been in companies, schools, and churches that had ‘increasing diversity’ as one of the goals and I often wonder if the collective ‘we’ knew what we were asking for.

We try affirmative action, we develop scholarship programs for minorities, we set hiring goals to bring in people of color, and we wish church was not so racially monochromatic.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I am a diverse individual myself being a Chippewa Indian Irishman from Canada living in West Texas.  I celebrate the diversity of my cultural DNA and I love the idea of cultural diversity.  I have seen it work very well.  I just think that people often wish for this end product but do not prepare for it adequately.

Living in a diverse culture for an extended period is very challenging when it is not who you are.  Becoming a diverse culture is a change of identity.  There is so much to learn and people who are different from you do not necessarily value what you think is important.  Over time, I would expect frustration and stress to build in ways that prevent you from experiencing the attraction that you originally had to diversity.  The differences become sources of irritation, disgust and potentially even malevolent behavior.  Eventually, you may end up in a conflict scenario that surprises you.

Like a young couple expecting their first child, a radical shift in identity occurs as they become parents.  Becoming a diverse workplace, school, or church is also a radical shift of identity.  And the challenges of being young parents are not so different from the onset of cultural diversity.  The bad news is there are new patterns of living required; there are increased frustrations from having to give up things you valued and more time and energy spent on things for others.  These are par for the course.  But the good news is we get so much more than we bargained for--like the pride of parents (and grandparents) of a newborn child.  Out of the work we do for diversity we can reap treasured friendships, knowledge of world mysteries, and a much better understanding of who we are.  Essentially, the opportunity of diversity is an expanded life to live in God’s diverse world.  So, are you ready for diverse cultural experiences?

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