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Valuing Diversity
This is a menu of the topics on this page (click on any): The Reality We See reconciliation Core Values Things We've Done Things We're Doing Other Things on Our Minds Connections Things Omitted in this draft of this document .
The Reality We See
We are being given the gift of wealth unparalleled in the history of our planet.
Forty years ago we were astonished at the power of a Univac computer that was as big as a home.
Today we can find the same computing power in a device the size of a Palm Pilot.
We can fly to the moon; we've cured diseases;
we take for granted extraordinary luxury in personal transportation vehicles.
Some of us have built immense personal fortunes; hundreds of millions of us enjoy
a middle class life with great opportunity. All this is possible because we live
on a planet rich in resources and because we have the ability to make the most of
those resources.
Perhaps the opportunity for accumulating individual wealth was essential to this prosperity. But in the process vast numbers of us have been left behind and despite our good intent vast numbers of us do not have the skills to share in our prosperity. Some fear we are not moving towards a just planet, a fair planet, or a planet that is safe even for the privileged among us.
We feel that the time has come to assure basic human rights of safety, shelter, food, education and personal choice for all of us. We want to begin in our community the process to make these rights available to all people and we feel we should start with the most vulnerable among us. We also feel that our process must have the possibility of fundamental change in the availability of opportunity.
It is possible that, as Why Religion Matters, by Huston Smith argues, the next great accomplishments of humankind will be in getting along with each other. Certainly the Civil Rights movement and its aftermath have set the stage for transformational change. While mankind may have been more destructive in the past century than in any prior century, humankind also has risen to unprecedented acts of reconciliation. Events in the Truth & Reconciliation Commission the apologies of the Mission Of Reconciliation are examples.
Core Values
We share a short list of core values.
- We believe that each of us carries responsibility for himself or herself and for our neighbors identified as family, by proximity, and by our impact on others.
- We believe that we can and do make a difference.
- We believe that others respond as we bear witness to the reality we see and to our core values.
Things We've Done
- We were organized and given non-profit (501C3) status in 1992.
- Dismantling Racism Workshops
- Encouraging and helping in the Pearl City Reunion.
Things We're Doing
- Sept 15.
- February 1-2.
Other Things on Our Minds
- The Millenium Development Goals, especially the status of women, especially in developing countries and in areas torn by war and oppression where women and children are hurt the most.
- 15th Terrace in Pearl City.
Connections
- Several of us are members of the local chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives.
- Several of us are on the Board of Trustees of Family Promise of South Palm Beach County, Inc.
Things Omitted in this draft of this document
- Thoughts on leadership, especially in Palm Beach County in 2007.
This domain (www.ValuingDiversity.org) might become the suggested reading materials for a conference by DISC on February 1-2, 2008. If you would like to name papers or other material (videos and images) for this conference, call Carl House at 368-7445 or send e-mail to carlhouse@att.net. Materials that are here now can be set aside to make room for those agreed upon by DISC people.
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We've seen 3 recent newspaper columns or stories about integration not being what people in America want.
We've not yet found the one by Leonard Pitts, but here are the other two about integration.
And, here's an editorial about Tavis Smiley by Leonard Pitts just to honor them in this page.
One word of caution. If we conclude that integration is not what people want, it does not mean that issues of justice and fairness are any less important.
I think the way we've been thinking, that we'll all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, has been naive. It remains terribly important that we be respectful, that we be mobile, that we honor each other, that justice be denied to nobody. It's just that we need to do it in a way that respects our instincts as well as our sense of justice and peace.
The first two of these articles are among the three that have prompted these thoughts.
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