Diversity breeds strength and innovations
 
 Often times the word “Affirmative Action” gets in the way and shadows the word that really means something – Diversity. Today, one of the most serious crisis facing our community is the overcoming of youthful anger, the dreams, and the lack of intellectual development. The group most affected is obviously the young males. It’s easy to look at this dismal situation and begin to justify why “it’s not my problem.” Well, all our ancestors may have come to this country in different boats – but we’re all in the same boat now. If part of that boat sinks, eventually the rest will go down too. We must understand that.
 
 The interesting thing is that this situation doesn’t have to happen and is totally preventable. If you speak to those in education, they will tell you that young minority students in kindergarten and early grades are as good students as anywhere else. But then something happens as Dr. Carson explains it in his book – The Big Picture.
 
 These young and ambitious young children start studying in America history about our great nation, and they discover that there’s nobody who looks like them in those history books who ever did much of significance. They think, well, maybe next year, when I take world history, it’ll be different. Then they discover that nobody in their world history book who did anything of great significance looks much like them either. When they come home from school and turn on the TV they finally say, “Oh! There I am – playing football or baseball or basketball, rapping in baggy pants that look like you could fly in them, or acting the fool on some sitcom.” So these young men begin to develop a certain self-image – about themselves and the world they live in. That’s how I’m going to make it, they decide. The media doesn’t tell them that only seven out of a million make it as starters in NBA or that one in ten thousand make it in any lasting way in sports and entertainment.
 
 “We need to emphasize the right things,” said Dr. Carson. We need to emphasize the intellect. Most of these young men don’t get that emphasis. When they don’t find out until much later that they are never going to be a sports or entertainment star, what’s left? Up drives a big black BMW with tinted glass. Out steps this tall, handsome gentleman wearing jewelry and furs, with women hanging on his arm. And he says, “wouldn’t you like to have what I have? Society sold you a bill of goods. Let me show you how to get everything you’ll ever want or need.” And hence, we have people who do things none of us can ever imagine a human being would do – because they feel betrayed by society. Of course, that’s only part of the sociology involved. But it’s something that should give us all pause.
 
 Dr. Carson goes on to explain that any one of us could take that young man at the age of six, walk him down the street and give him a black history lesson that would have thrilled his heart. It could have changed his life. We could start our walking lesson by pointing at our shoes and saying, “It was Jan Matzliger, a black man, who invented the automatic shoe-lasting machine, which revolutionized the shoe industry throughout the world. We could step out onto a street clear of debris and tell him about Charles Brooks, who invented the automatic streetsweeper. Down the clean streets comes one of those big refrigerated tractor-trailer trucks – so we’d tell him about Frederick Lones, who invented a refrigeration system for trucks, later adopted for airplanes, trains and ships. When the truck stops at a red light, we can tell him about Garret Morgan, a black man, who designed the stop signal, and also invented the gas mask, which has saved many soldiers’ lives.

 We could then tell him about Henrietta Bradbury, the black woman who invented the underwater cannon, making it possible to launch torpedoes from submarines. And we could talk about Madame C.J. Walker, the black woman who invented cosmetic products for women of dark complexion, the first woman of any race in this nation to become a millionaire entirely through her own efforts.

When we walk our young friend past a hospital, we could tell him about Charles Drew and his contributions to blood banking or about Daniel Williams, who performed the first successful open-heart surgery. We could look up at a surgical light and tell him about Thomas Edison – you didn’t know he was black did you? Well he wasn’t but his right-hand man, Lewis Lattimer, was. Lattimer was the person who invented the filament that enabled Edison’s light bulb to burn longer than a few days. He also pioneered research in incandescent lighting. He even diagrammed the telephone for Alexander Graham Bell. He was one of the country’s greatest inventors, and most people don’t recognize Lewis Lattimer’s name.

We could walk along the railroad tracks and tell the boy about Andrew Beard, inventor of the automatic railroad car coupler, which helped spur on the industrial revolution. Or Elijah McCoy’s many great inventions – like the automatic lubricating system for engines. When any big new mechanical development came along in the early industrial era, people used to ask, “Is that a McCoy? Is that the real McCoy?” He was the origin of that phrase.
 
We can take that young boy and educate him about Cato Howe, Plato Turner, Quamony Quash and Prince Goodwin. Four black men that fought side by side with General George Washington for the liberation of America. We can then take that young boy to Plymouth, MA and show him the historic Parting Ways cemetery where these four veterans are buried. At that point, we can put an end to the myth that blacks were freed from slavery in 1861. Cato, Plato, Quamony and Prince were black, free-men and land owners in 1776 in Plymouth, Massachusetts – America’s hometown. 
 
Even by scratching the surface you can see the impact of diversity and the value of history. We have all achieved tremendous accomplishments… because we have made enormous contributions. That’s how America got to be number one faster than any other nation in history – because we have people from everywhere, from all corners of the earth. Some people only see our differences as problems. But our racial and ethnic diversity should not be a problem. It is a good thing. We should include in our education systems text books that teaches minority children positive contributions their ancestors have made. Praise our Heavenly Father for giving us diversity and please, let’s never let people with small minds make them into a problem or weakness. 
 
Diversity breeds strength and innovations. Successful organizations, corporations and society have all understood, embraced and respected the value of diversity.

Tags: Diversity Affirmative Action