We need more diversity in Lexington

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One of the many things I realized over the recent difficult weekend I spent in Leesburg, Va., is that we in Lexington and probably in Kentucky as a whole are missing out on a wealth of relationships with other cultures because of the slim amount of diversity here.

People from at least four cultures attended my brother’s funeral because they genuinely loved him. They were friends who were also neighbors and co-workers.

For those of us living in Lexington, how many cultures will be attending our funerals?

I had made note of the diversity in my brother’s life back in 1992 when his daughter married and her wedding party was generously sprinkled with ethnicity. It wasn’t just black and white. It was all shades, all combinations, all good.

I think we all need that. My children have no problem with it, bringing home friends of all cultures. Before our pool sprang a leak, our home was fast becoming a small piece of the United Nations on weekends, complete with Caribbean, Japanese, Hispanic, American whites and American blacks.

I really enjoy that.

The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Mashantucket, Conn., seems to believe we all should be enjoying the richness of diverse cultures.

Officials there are featuring a new exhibit of film, still photography and various other components through which visitors can explore the historical concept of race and racism as seen through the lens of science and our own experience. “Race: Are We So Different?” has been showing since May and will end on Sept. 6.

Because not many of us can visit the exhibit before it closes and get a true sense of what it is trying to project to us, I’m including a link to an article in the Hartford Courant, written by Susan Campbell, that goes beyond the exhibit. She talks with experts who say how we define race and cultures eventually serves to limit people and ourselves. And there is no basis for it. Check out the article at http://www.courant.com/entertainment/museums/galleries/hc-aboutrace.artaug20,0,578735.story.

It will be worth your time and may prompt us to get more diversity of all kinds in our lives.

This composite portrait is among the works in Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center

With the U.S. Census Bureau recently projecting that minorities will be the majority population by 2042, we need to jump on that boat before it sails.

That is especially urgent when, in the article, we learn that our children are seeking diversity only in public. Privately they seem to be isolationists and as narrow-minded as we, their parents, are.

Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.”

I believe that includes not only visiting other places, but also expanding the boundaries of our minds and our hearts.

Let’s do it for the sake of our children.

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