By Duane Galloway

Dear Neighbor,

All right, neighbors, what makes you shake in your boots, makes your blood curdle and your hair stand on end? What makes you afraid to venture outside and makes you keep to yourself?

Recently, words appeared in this publication and others reviling DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs at businesses, government agencies and schools.

These diatribes paint DEI as the most devious, unscrupulous, underhanded spirit ever to haunt this hallowed nation. This is where I might normally write a point-for-point refutation of these claims citing the reality that many of the writers have no idea what DEI actually is and that the “facts” they cite are exaggerations or outright fabrications.

However, that is simply a list for a list that limits discussion. Instead, I want to focus on what I believe to be the cause of the controversy: fear. If I am a person who dislikes DEI, what might go through my mind: Fear that if someone else gains something, I must lose something, that the world is not big enough for everyone to be successful. I fear that if a program is dedicated to making a minority group feel more at home in a white-dominated environment, something will be taken away from me because I am white. I fear that if businesses and institutions offer training sessions on how we can all get along in a diverse workplace, I somehow lose. I might believe that my “place,” which I have worked hard for, is threatened. I want a “meritocracy” because I believe only people like me succeed in that environment. I imagine that studying how everyone contributes something in this complex nation of over 300 million people is “reverse discrimination” because I contributed the most and everyone must recognize that.

Instead, I refuse to be afraid of my neighbor. I refuse to be afraid of my neighbor’s culture just because I know little about it. I refuse to believe that I am losing my soul as the world changes around me.

So, how do I defeat my fears: I could see the world through someone else’s eyes. If I walk through life only viewing the world through my own eyes, then I am likely to be afraid of every sound and every stranger because of my mind’s twisted sense of self-preservation. I cannot know another person’s trials, struggles and victories if I can only see my own.

So, I need you to help me. We must look the things that go bump in the night dead in the eye and tell them we are through being afraid!

“Dear Neighbor” authors are united in a belief that civility and passion can coexist. We believe curiosity and conversation make us a better community.