Growing up I accepted religious and racial diversity as normal. Laurelton, the Long Island, New York town I grew up in, was predominately Jewish with the first couple of streets reflecting the Catholic population of the two neighboring towns, and added to the mix a nice Protestant representation .
My two best neighborhood friends were Jewish. One of them was the older sister of the future wife of Bernie Madoff – not a claim to fame to brag about.
My father taught in a predominately black public school. Diversity was something I didn’t think much about. It certainly was discussed in some of my nursing school classes and probably in my pre-nursing school classes, but it was all theory for me.
After my graduation from Cornell’s nursing school in 1959 I worked in public health for Arlington County, Virginia. My field work was in a predominately white, low income area. The health department had two maternity clinics and two well baby clinics which served the client population according to skin color. When I applied for the job with Arlington County there was no mention of racial diversity in the services that were offered. And having never experienced such discrimination I did not know enough to ask.
When I made the decision to take the PHN job in northern Virginia several friends asked if I was prepared for the racial discrimination of the South. I was not. In the health department building not only were there separate clinics for the black patients but there was also a separate bathroom. I got to experience this when there was a minor flu epidemic among the nursing staff and I was temporarily assigned to the black maternity clinic. It was a very busy patient day and I suddenly had to use the bathroom which clearly stated on the door that it was for the black community. There was no time for me to head to the “white ” bathroom which was in a different part of the building. I was just too busy and besides I thought it was a stupid concept to have bathroom use based on race.
My family was Irish and I was imbued with a strong pride in my Irish heritage. It was not till 1988 when Jerry and I and son Jerry, with ten of his friends, headed to Sierra Leone, West Africa to be with our son Joe for his final two weeks as a Peace Corps volunteer, that I was opened to racial diversity in a new way.
According to Google, diversity is ” the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds………..”
It was such a learning experience to spend two weeks in Sierra Leone. It was very special to meet these people who had become Joe’s good friends. What stands out in my memory is the poverty, the shortage of electricity, the very simple dress. The people of Rokupr – the town where Joe was stationed – about one hundred miles from the capitol, Freetown, had electricity for several hours a day. Electricity is an amenity that I took for granted. The local dress was so colorful. Even the wildlife was very diverse. It is basically a Muslim country with about a 20% Christian population. It has a tribal population where the language of each tribe is their spoken language. It has a history of a brutal civil war.
Joe taught chemistry, math and physics in a Muslim high school. The people in the town were so welcoming to our group of family and friends. I think we were ten in number – it was 1988 so my recollection of exact numbers is a little hazy, I had never seen such incredibly beautiful night skies – there was no airplane traffic. The shortage of electricity enhanced the beauty of the night.
Poverty was rampant. When one of the town people invited our whole group to a family dinner I was very conscious that they seemed to be holding back in their food portion size wanting to make sure we all were amply fed. I was very conscious of the simplicity of their living accommodations.
The trip to West Africa truly opened up my thoughts to racial and religious diversity. It was the two weeks in Sierra Leone where we actually lived the diversity that it became really for me and has never left my thought processes.
The 1960’s were a time of tremendous racial turmoil in the United States as exemplified by the March on Washington in 1963 – more than a quarter of a million people participated; as exemplified by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968 and the resulting nationwide violence and destruction. The 1960’s were also the decade when our five children were born – limiting my time to be as active as I would have liked in pro democracy movements. I would have loved to have gone with my husband to participate in the March on Washington but our baby number two was due to be born several weeks later and I thought staying home with our fourteen month old baby number one was the better course of action. I felt that in Jerry’s going he was representing both of us.
And now with the Israeli/Hamas conflict I find myself reflecting on that part of the world and wondering if peace is possible. The initial attack by Hamas was horrifying. The death and destruction that is being inflicted on the Palestinians is equally horrendous. I am so moved by the pro-Palestinian postings on the war by granddaughter Annie who is teaching in Madrid. I pray that both sides see the futility of war, that they come to question what can possibly be gained by senseless killing.
I like to reflect on the words of Kofi Annan “We may have different religions, different languages, different colors of skin, but we all belong to one human race.”
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