I’m a 29-year-old white, Christian male. I live in the middle of the United States.
I’m not a minority.
I don’t have a right to tie that word to my name.
I’ll never know what it’s like to be a:
African American
Asian
Jew
Latino
Poor
Samoan
Woman
Insert any other minority group here.
My life will never be challenged in those ways, and yours might not either. Myself, and those like me, rarely, if ever, will have the opportunity to feel ‘different.’
But how can we try? How can we begin to put ourselves in situations where we are different? Where we are outsiders. Where we are forced to think differently and empathize with how the majority of others feel when they are around us.
That is a kind of person I long to be.
-Cliff
Cliff’s Note: Be exposed to different.