What Unites Us
By Melanie Sklarz
Topics covered: beliefs, difference, diversity, generations, race | 0 comments
A couple of months ago I met a charming woman at an intimate gathering of professionals. When I mentioned I worked in diversity training, she immediately told me about a piece her daughter had written for the NPR show This I Believe. Below is the insightful essay.
Seeing Beyond Our Differences
by Sheri White
My mother is a geneticist, and from her I learned that despite our differences in size, shape and color, we humans are 99.9 percent the same. It is in our nature to see differences: skin, hair and eye color, height, language, gender, sexual orientation, even political leanings. But also in our nature, way down in the DNA that makes us human, we are almost identical.
I believe there is more that unites us than divides us.
My mother came to the United States from India. She is dark enough that she was refused service in a diner in 1960s Dallas. My father is a white boy from Indiana whose ancestors came from Germany in the mid-1800s and England in the mid-1600s. I am a well-tanned mix of the two of them.
About the author: Melanie Sklarz is a partner with Legacy Business Cultures and the web content coordinator for the RespectfulWorkplace.com site, the lead blog writer, and a facilitator for Legacy's diversity and respect programs. She earned her MA in Women’s Studies from the Ohio State University. Author's Website