Pushing Diversity

Nevada and Vernon County have a wide diversity of people, and if the community continues to grow so will diversity.

I was speaking with Carol Branham today and, as often happens when we get together, we got into a long-winded and wandering conversation about a variety of subjects. One of the things we talked about was diversity. We were both members of the diversity committee that was the brainchild of Helen Washburn and which was dissolved after her departure from Cottey. I came to be on the committee because of a column I wrote where I said the committee was secretive. Double-D (a personal, and mostly secret, nickname I had for Tedd Maxfield) took me to task for that comment and after talking to the committee I somehow found myself on it.

Now I don't believe the committee was purposefully secretive, plotting to destroy Nevada or any of that baffle-garb but I do believe it was less forthcoming than it could have been. I believe that it was partly because many on the committee saw themselves as trend-setters who needed to push a backward community toward enlightenment. Needless to say I disagreed with that position.

Nevada is like many communities all across the country, it has strengths and weaknesses. There is an old guard in town who oppose change because change could diminish their status. That's true for communities of all sizes from New York to California and from Texas to North Dakota and all points in between. Deal with it and move on.

I believe a diverse community is a healthy community. The differences I had with the committee were not over whether we, as a community, should welcome a diverse mix of people to the area but rather how we should accomplish that. My position is that if you have a good community that good people want to live in, they will find it. Good people of all kinds and types.

I found it hard to understand their feeling that they should 'push' diversity. There is a difference between illustrating how diversity can be of benefit and shoving it down someone's throat. If you push some people they may do as you wish but they will resent it. If you push others you may find yourself flat on your back trying to stem the flow of blood from your nose. In other words the wrong tactics could cause more harm than good and I felt the tactics the committee urged at some of the meetings would do just that.

One of the proposals floated during a meeting was that an education campaign should be undertaken to make community members aware that different cultures often interacted differently and the community should take that into account when dealing with someone from another country. I felt that such an undertaking was not only beyond the means and ability of the committee to accomplish I thought the committee could do more good by getting in touch with those who came into our community one by one and giving them tips for getting along with established members of the community and offering our services to help ease their transition. For one thing it would cut the number of people we would have to deal with by an order of magnitude.

As I said I believe Nevada is a good place to live, it could be better but it could be much worse as well. If we work toward making it even better everyone benefits.