Building Bridges: Strengthening Leadership for Diverse Communities

I recently attended a leadership development course at my school called "Building Bridges: Strengthening Leadership for Diverse Communities."  Generally, small classes like these are dreaded due to the standard cringing class layout and where no one speaks up causing the speaker to stare at everyone blankly and expectantly every few minutes before they become embarrassed and move on.  Often, these classes have already been pounded into my head - I am fully aware of the importance of diversity and have been told multiple times to be constantly nice to others.  Often, I feel like they are simply beating a dead horse.

This class ended up being different for a few different reasons.  It was very small and personal, and somehow - I don't know how - it was a different layout.  People were willing to speak up, and the leaders of the discussion didn't skirt around controversial stereotypes.

While I cannot recreate completely what I learned in the course, I found out more about those people in the classroom than I have about the majority of my friends.  I even found a few kindred spirits, which is rather impressive since the course was only two hours long.

There was one interesting person that obviously I will not name, but I believe that you would find her interesting as well.  We were asked several diversity related questions such as, "did you have a friend in high school who was a different ethnicity than you?" and "do you currently have a friend who is a different race?" To all of these questions, she answered no.  Maybe that isn't as mind-blowing to you as it is to me, but I was entirely amazed that this girl did not have any experience with other races or ethnic groups at all growing up.  Obviously, she had to have had a little experience, but not to associate with a single "different" person in her 19 year old life seemed so extreme to me, I was wondering if she was even listening to the questions.  I really wish I could have gotten into her head at this point, I really want to know what she thought of other cultures and races.  Was she naive enough about other races that she really thought stereotypes ran across the board, or did she understand that stereotypes don't fit everybody?  Was she even aware of the diversity within other race or ethnic groups?

While of course, I make no marks on her life for this - she was obviously doing well and from the two hour course I took with her, seemed to be an otherwise well-balanced (if party-centric) girl.  I have never felt the need to say that I am happy I come from diverse schools and other social mediums, but after discovering that there are people who do not - I am extremely happy.

I've been lucky enough in life to never notice diversity in friends.  I'm pretty unique, though, too.