Celebrate Diversity

Dear people of peace,

We have spent many years in this country struggling for civil and human rights– for women, people of color, workers, the GLBTIQ community and victims of crime to name just a very few.  In the peace community we often talk about appreciating diversity as one of the tenets of social justice.  The PRIDE celebration in Kalispell next week has the tagline – “Celebrate Diversity”, and so I’ve been reflecting on what that means and how we do it?  It is easy to understand what it is not.  Surely Barry Brubaker is not celebrating diversity in his attempt to stop the gay pride parade because it is against his definition of God’s will.  The same can be said for the person or persons who murdered Dr. George Tiller last weekend for providing abortions to women.  And there is no cause for celebration when women, people of color – including Montana’s indigenous population — or those in the LGBTIQ community are fired, attacked or hated for being who they are.  But likewise, it is not enough to accept that there are folks in the world who do not agree with us or look like us or think like us. True celebration must go beyond merely appreciating or tolerating others.  To truly celebrate what is different, we must actively seek it out, embrace it and welcome it into our lives, our conversations and our attitudes.  President Obama’s address to Notre Dame last month (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/chi-barack-obama-notre-dame-speech,0,2951798.story) was a beautiful expression of what is possible when we overcome the division of difference.  But even knowing this, it is far too easy for me to react negatively to a new idea because it is unfamiliar to my own or to find myself judging someone else because they don’t think and act like me.   As people of peace, our celebration of diversity must include making room at the table for what is different, truly looking forward to understanding that difference and agreeing to work together through the human urges to judge and react.  It is about all the people who stand up and speak out and do so repeatedly despite the costs, and about those who come to their aid.  Diverse perspectives are essential for balanced decision-making, so I hope that I will welcome them even if I don’t want to hear them.  And I also hope that I will be willing to speak up when I’m the one who is different.  Our new Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sotomayor herself said, “I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society?”  And finally, I propose that our celebration of diversity must also be about forgiveness.  It is not easy to invite Mr. Brubaker or Dr. Tiller’s murderer to the table, but we must.  They represent diversity as well.  Consider coming to Kalispell next week and practicing this celebration of our rich human tapestry.  I want to close with this poem called Forgiveness written by one of this century’s great defenders of human rights and a six-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, Leonard Peltier.

Let us forgive the worst among us
because the worst is in ourselves,
the worst lives in each of us,
along with the best.

Let us forgive the worst
in each of us
and all of us
so that the best
in each of us
and all of us
may be free.

from PRISON WRITINGS: My Life Is My Sun Dance
Published by St. Martins Press, NYC; 1999