Diversity My Country Is One

Diversity

My country is one of the best known countries in the world for its diversity, yet the United States, like most of the rest of the world, had its share of intolerance and racial discrimination. Some of us are still under the influence of all kinds of prejudices. The children raise in a home where their parents express some content vs. any other minority based on skin color, intellectual capacity or social status, are having a hard time adjusting to and forming their own opinions regarding the issue of discriminatory behavior.

I was raised in a small town where there were little opportunities for witnessing discrimination because the overwhelming majority of my community was Caucasian and Christian. However, there was a small community of the Roma population living nearby, secluded. One day, as I was on the bus on the way to school, there were two Roma school boys, about eight-ten years old, who sat near me. One of them was humming a song that I found quite obscene in terms of its melodic line. At some point, my phone rang off and I had Mozart's Eine Kleine Nacht Musik as my ring tone. One of them stopped and listened very carefully. After I finished my brief conversation, he started humming the song he had just listened to and he was extraordinarily good at it. I was overwhelmed and ashamed. First, because I automatically felt superior to the boys because they were different and second because I was taught a lesson by an eight-year-old who could barely read and write. I suddenly thought of my philosophy lesson in high school and de debate "nature vs. nurture." How much of it is what you are born with and how much the result of environmental conditions? I was beginning to wonder if their seclusion was more than just a one side reaction and result of their willingness to keep their cultural heritage intact....I promised myself I was never going to feel superior to another human being just because s (he) is different and I cannot understand her or his behavior.