Valuing the diversity of others does not necessarily come easy in our personal or professional lives. For instance in my professional life I work with a multitude of cultures on many different levels. I always take into consideration the other persons culture at all times. From my co-workers and their lifestyle choices to the children and their cultural differences.
I work at an elementary school where many of the employees and students are of the Indian culture. I have become aware of their lifestyle choices and have over time become in tune with their personalities through understanding and making the attempt to understand them. For example I am not a vegetarian, but I have come to understand how important it is within their culture/religion, so i make the conscious decision to understand and during lunch time with the students I make the effort to talk to them about their food and share with them my favorites within their cultural food group.
I have found that taking each persons individual personality into consideration is very important. I have found many different personalities within my professional group, and my ability to adjust to them is essential. I work with people who are sensitive to tone and comments, so I make the effort to keep my sarcasm to a minimum and make every attempt to avoid a mis interpretation of words. I also have co workers that are on a much personal level to me and the things we talk about are definitely things we would not talk about with many others.
One specific example is one of my best friends being from South Africa.This friend means so much to me, so I go out of my way to make sure that they are not left out of conversations or jokes that they may not understand. I make the effort to ask them things about their culture and how they react or deal with certain life situations. I love to explore their culture and incorporate their lifestyle and culture with my own.
In conclusion I don't think that valuing diversity comes easily, but I think that with the effort (no matter how tremendous it may be) we all can understand one another and move to a society that does not seclude people and makes us all feel equal.
Excellent point when you mention that you have to adjust to people’s personalities. I also find myself saying less sarcastic comments to people I don’t know because I don’t know their sense of humor they might take my comment to heart. Some cultures don’t understand the concept of sarcasm or just don’t find it funny. This proves that humor varies culture to culture. On the other hand, I recently started watching a TV show from another country and the main basis of their humor is sarcasm. I guess it’s best to understand the person and their culture first, including what they find funny, or else they might just end up getting offended with what you say.
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