I was prompted to return to the blog today by a post by a wonderful man who has been recording his favorite books in his blog. A reader of his pointed out that very few of his books were written by women, and he suspected that even fewer were written by other minorities. Interestingly, I responded immediately with two books written by women, but I don't think I responded with any by minority authors.
Now both Brendon and I are far from what one would think of as close-minded or sexist/racist/agist etc. but it does beg the question about the natural mix in our world. Is it that the dominant race/gender is that by sheer numbers and therefore that's what we choose - the Walmart approach to anything - most accessible, most convenient, most prevalent...or is it in our very consumer driven economy that we are the sculptors who demand the dominant race/gender and that's why that is the main choice?
I remember an exercise from my cultural diversity class in college where given 15 different colors of marbles, you were given a small bowl and a list of about 30 different relationships - from intimate partner to dentist to who sold you your car - and asked to identify the diversity in your life by filling the bowl with marbles that represented the various ethnic/religious/sexual orientation backgrounds. Oh sure, there was the stereotype to identify groups -- black for AA, white for white, pink for LGBT, etc. but what color is fills your bowl?
Since then, I have actively sought out more diversity in my life --- actively sought it --- and I believe I have failed at making much of a change. That exercise was easily 20 years ago, I always had pretty many women service providers and of course as friends, but only male intimates and my choice for life partner is a white man. I have definitely increased my relationships with folks identified as LGB, but other minorities? Sadly, maybe only a little. Now to be fair, I haven't increased my number of close friends by
more than 10 in the last 20 years, and I am happy to say that I have increased the overall diversity in that category, a little....but I wouldn't call it a multicultural festival.
Even when living in Europe, I was only able to increase the diversity within ethnicity to include more Middle Eastern individuals, but not Africans, Muslims, yes, and of various countries, yes, but why not Africans, and browner skinned people? The easy answer is I didn't live in their neighborhood.
Why is this? Who is referred to me when I ask for referral? Should I say, where can I get an African American dentist? Can I find an Asian accountant? A wheelchair bound hairdresser? A Jewish cook? A senior mechanic? A Muslim author? A male gynecologist? A Latino psychiatrist?
And is any of this important? Does it say anything about who I respect, trust, look to for advice? I think it does on some level, and that's what worries me.
