An America Where Everyone Is A Minority: Why Not Embrace It?
By Marlene Caroselli
More than half of all babies born in America today are infants of color. Experts tell us that in fewer than four decades, our nation will no longer have one dominant racial or ethnic group.
William Frey, senior fellow at the esteemed Brookings Institute predicted in an opinion piece (May 2012) that minorities would decide the 2012 election. And indeed, they did.
There’s no doubt about the increasing impact of minority power, if only in terms of numbers.
Each of us can embrace diversity and can choose to bring the inevitable changes, that are occurring, into our lives right now.
If you are entertaining at home, for example, invite guests from other ethnic groups–guests who reflect a divergence from a homogeneous grouping. If you are forming a team at work, bring in those with different skin color, different backgrounds, different viewpoints.
If you want your children to have a wide range of experiential inputs, include children from different cultures in your family activities. Organize play dates or study dates with classmates who are different from your child, in terms of background, religion, gender, race or ethnicity. They will surely have to work in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society.
Writing in The New York Times (online edition, April 22, 2007, “How Diversity Makes a Team Click”), Kelley Holland notes that multicultural teams are especially prevalent in global organizations. Increasingly, though, all kinds of companies are recognizing the benefits of work groups that are not alike in their thinking, their gender, or their life experiences.
Even cognitive orientation should vary, asserts Robert Sternberg of Yale, who believes the best teams include at least one person who is creative, one who is knowledgeable about the processes being examined, one who excels at logical or analytical tasks.
So why not elect now to make your life–at work and at home–more diverse. In so doing, enrichment is sure to follow.