Diversity impacts everyday life, and a group of local organizations wants residents to take some time to talk about it on Saturday.
For the sixth year, the Durango Community Relations Commission, Embracing Diversity Initiative, Durango High School Prejudice Elimination Action Team, Common Ground and El Centro de Muchos Colores at Fort Lewis College and Celebrating Healthy Communities will host a Diversity Dialogue.
“It’s important to understand what a diverse community is,” said Bill Bolden, who sits on city’s Community Relations Commission. “It’s not just a head count, it’s not just what you see. Differences are to be valued, and every person you meet is a window to a whole other world.”
It’s much more than racial or ethnic background, he said.
“This isn’t just vistas, politics, economics or social standing,” Bolden said.
“It’s how we choose to treat each other when all we each want is to be safe, to have a good quality of life and wellness.”
What can people expect at the dialogue?
“There will be interactive exercises and discussion,” Bolden said. “The goal is to get people to be introspective and hear the challenges and triumphs of people who are different than they are. We want them to leave with a commitment to leave the community better than they found it.”
The commission has conducted surveys at several businesses and events to find out what residents and visitors like and don’t like about Durango. The surveys show Durangoans appreciate the diversity in the community.
“But people will say Durango doesn’t have enough black people,” Bolden said. “I ask, ‘How many do you need?’ If you want to see black people, go to Atlanta, go to the Southeast. In the Southwest, there are many brown people, Native American and Hispanic, who greatly enrich our culture.”
He said many people say Durango is “very white.”
“But we’re the most ethnically diverse ski town in the state,” Bolden said. “It adds richness. You don’t have to get a passport to meet somebody different than you.”
The dialogue’s other goal, Bolden said, is to build an ethic of being respectful and treating people right.
“It’s just we’re all neighbors, and do we realize what that means?” he said.
“It seems like drivers are more aggressive, and we’re losing that nice, common courtesy, be kind to people ethic. We want to change that.”
abutler@durangoherald.com
If you go
The Diversity Dialogue will be held from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in the Peaks Room at the Durango Community Recreation Center. Attendees are asked to bring a nonperishable food item to donate to the La Plata Family Center food pantry.
To learn more, contact Lauren Patterson at lauren.evaluation@gmail.com or 259-1247.
Visit www.durangogov.org/index.aspx?nid=696 to see the results of the surveys the Durango Community Relations Commission has conducted.
