I decided to discuss diversity and culture with
three different people a co-worker, acquaintance, and husband. I will provide
their definitions plus insights I gained from reflecting on their perspectives.
The first
person I spoke to is an acquaintance he is visiting my workplace as a military
family life advocate consultant and the term we use is “M-Flac” their job is to
council and listen to individuals of family members and children that may have
difficulty with a parent being deployed or other life issues and concerns. Our “M-Flac”
provides emotional and social support to these military families. J. Scott defined
culture as a “collective psyche or essence of an area or a region, a neighborhood
or a state” he shared with me a little bit of his background and his experience
growing up in a school where he was under minded and profiled because of the
place he grew up. Keeping in mind J. Scott was born in 1949 and the times of
accepting different cultures were different from some views today, I learned
his father earned a doctorate degree at a well-known Christian college and how
his mother also graduated from college with a high grade point average. He explained
frustrations of being placed in the lowest level of classes in grade school but
proved to be one of the smartest students. His definition of diversity is an “interaction
between two or more cultures and their representatives. J. Scott shared with me within his high school
years (growing up as a “white”) individual in southern Tennessee where a
majority of his classmates pushed him away because he “talked different” and
viewed “black” people as no different from him and the only people that
welcomed him were “black people.” As J. Scott shared his experience with me I
gained a little understanding of his identity and remain grateful for the present
time of knowing some people living in the world stay open to differences in
people.
The
second person I discussed diversity and culture with is a good friend and
co-worker. T. Myles defined culture as “How each of us live and how we all come
from different backgrounds.” She explained just because (she is African American)
“me and you are different shades of black doesn’t mean we are both black and the
same I know we grew up with different cultures and the way you were raised is
different from the way I was raised” She defined diversity as “when you have
two different races come together.” she continues to say that “diversity and
culture definitions are almost alike” Just yesterday our program celebrated “Diversity
Day” and the children created a dance to this song. Each colored a flag from a
different country, dressed up in the countries costumes and danced together to “Wavin
Flag”
I don’t have video but their dance almost brought me
to tears because like my friend said and we agreed “it’s nice to see children
from different cultures come together as one” Her definition encouraged me to understand
that even though we may be different on the outside children still find time to
dance, eat and play together.
Last but not least my husband. J. Cortez His
definition of culture is when we look at “different races of people and how
their daily lives are and how different cultures interact with each other” his
example is that every culture is different “let’s say when it comes to food.” He
mentions his favorite dinner dishes from the Filipino culture and compares it
to say the American dinner. His definition of diversity includes how “people’s
imagination is different and how they handle situations differently he explains
people are independent and express themselves differently. From his definition
I agree with his thoughts on how people express themselves and handle
situations with different methods.
Some aspects of culture which I studied during this
course are seeing past the “surface” of culture and often get to know people to
completely understand and respect their views and perspectives. I think the one
perspective within culture and diversity which has been set aside or talked
about is looking at their culture and pulling out certain characteristics they
want to celebrate more than other aspects.
I included a video from youtube of the song our children danced to. As I listen to the words I find diversity within children make sense. Enjoy!
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