Even
though we may ultimately settle with one faith community, may we
never close the doors to anyone of any race, creed, or color! Here
are just a few ways to make sure we all stay open to each other:
1. Attend a play, listen to music or go to a dance performance by
artists whose race or ethnicity is different from your own.
2. Volunteer at a local social services organization.
3. Attend services at a variety of churches, synagogues, mosques
and temples to learn about different faiths.
4. Visit a local senior citizens center and collect oral histories.
Donate large-print reading materials and books on tape. Offer to
help with a craft project.
5. Shop at ethnic grocery stores and specialty markets. Get to know
the owners. Ask about their family histories.
6. Participate in a diversity program.
7. Ask a person of another cultural heritage to teach you how to
perform a traditional dance or cook a traditional meal.
8. Learn sign language.
9. Take a conversation course in another language that is spoken
in your community.
10. Teach an adult to read.
11. Speak up when you hear slurs. Let people know that bias speech
is always unacceptable.
12. Imagine what your life might be like if you were a person of
another race, gender or sexual orientation. How might "today"
have been different?
13. Take Native American history or study Civil Rights. Tour key
historical sites, museums, and go to pow wows..
14. Research your family history. Share information about your heritage
in talks with others.
15. List all the stereotypes you can — positive and negative
— about particular groups. Are these stereotypes carried through
in your words and actions?
16. Think about how you appear to others. List personality traits
that are compatible with tolerance, like compassion, curiosity,
and openness. List those traits that seem incompatible with tolerance,
like jealousy, bossiness, and superiority.
17. Create an informal "diversity profile" of your friends,
co-workers and acquaintances. Set the goal of expanding it a little
further each year.
18. Invite someone of a different background to join your family
for a meal or holiday.
19. Give a multi-cultural doll, toy or game as a gift.
20. Assess the cultural diversity reflected in your home's artwork,
music and literature. Add something new.
21. Don't buy playthings and video games that promote violence.
Don’t support television shows that glorify violence.
22. Point out stereotypes and cultural misinformation depicted in
movies, newspapers, TV news, TV shows, computer games, magazines
and other media.
23. Establish open dialogue about social issues. Support your children
- let them know that no subject is taboo.
24. Take the family to an ethnic restaurant. Learn about more than
just the food.
25. Involve all members of the family in selecting organizations
to support with charitable gifts.
26. Gather information about local volunteer opportunities and let
your children select projects for family participation.
27. Are all of your heroes aggressive males? Help your children
see the heroic qualities in those whose contributions often go unrecognized,
such as nurses, teachers, and volunteers in homeless shelters and
animal clinics.
28. Affirm your children's curiosity about race and ethnicity.
29. Help young children make an illustrated list of what friends
do or what friendship means.
30. Read </pt/index.html>books with multi-cultural and tolerance
themes to your children.
31. Watch what you say when you're angry. Curb your road rage.
32. Enroll your children in schools, daycare centers, after-school
programs and camps that reflect and celebrate differences.
33. Participate in Big Brother or Big Sister programs.
34. Live in an integrated and economically diverse neighborhood.
35. Read a book or watch a movie about another culture.
36. Donate tolerance-related books, films, magazines and other materials
to libraries. Organize book drives.
37. Buy art supplies for a local school. Sponsor a mural about the
cultural composition and heritage of your community.
38. Volunteer to be an advisor for a students’ club. Support
a wide range of extracurricular activities to help students find
their place at school.
39. Coach a sports team. Encourage schools to provide equal resources
for boys' and girls' athletics.
40. Assess your school's compliance with the accessibility requirements
of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Organize a class project
to improve compliance.
41. Donate a tape recorder to a school that is conducting oral history
projects. Suggest a focus on local tolerance issues.
42. Start a pen pal program. Get students in touch with people in
different parts of the world.
43. Applaud the other teams. Promote good sportsmanship. Ban taunting.
44. Provide confidential methods for students to report harassment
or bullying.
45. Sponsor a conflict resolution program.
46. Encourage school administrators to adopt Internet polices that
challenge on-line hate, bullying, harassment and pornography.
47. Invite bilingual students to give morning greetings and announcements
on the PA system in their home languages.
48. Make sure that school cafeterias offer options for students
and staff with dietary restrictions.
49. Keep adoptive and foster students in mind when planning family-oriented
programs.
50. Ask schools not to schedule tests or school meetings on the
major holidays of any religious group. Develop a school calendar
that respects religious diversity.
51. Hold a "diversity potluck" lunch. Invite co-workers
to bring dishes that reflect their cultural heritage.
52. Arrange a "box-lunch forum" on topics of diverse cultural
and social interest.
53. Partner with a local school and encourage your colleagues to
serve as tutors or mentors.
54. Value the input of everyone.
55. Push for equitable leave policies. Provide paid maternity and
paternity leave.
56. Don't close your door. Foster an open working environment.
57. Provide employees with paid leave to participate in volunteer
projects.
58. Publicize corporate giving widely, and challenge other companies
to match or exceed your efforts.
59. Frequent minority-owned businesses and get to know the proprietors.
60. Participate in blood drives, or clean up a local park or stream.
Identify such issues that reach across racial, ethnic and other
divisions and forge alliances for tackling them.
61. Hold a community-wide yard sale and use the proceeds to improve
a park or community center. Celebrate the event with a picnic.
62. Build a community peace garden.
63. Start a "language bank" of volunteer interpreters
for all languages used in your community.
64. Encourage fellow members of your congregation to be tolerance
activists.
65. Create a town website.
66. Host a "multi-cultural extravaganza" such as a food
fair or art, fashion and talent show.
67. Create mobile street libraries to make multi-cultural books
and films widely available.
68. Establish an ecumenical alliance. Bring people of diverse faiths
together for retreats, workshops or potluck dinners. Be welcoming
to agnostics and atheists, too.
69. Write a letter to the editor if your local newspaper ignores
any segment of the community or stories about cooperation and tolerance.
70. Start a campaign to establish a multi-cultural center for the
arts. Ask local museums to hosts exhibits and events reflecting
diversity at home and elsewhere.
71. Present a "disabilities awareness" event with the
help of a local rehabilitation organization
72. Make sure that anti-discrimination protection in your community
extends to all people, regardless of sexual orientation..
73. Encourage law enforcement agencies to establish diversity training
for all officers, to utilize community-based policing and to eliminate
the use of inequitable tactics like racial profiling.
74. Help build a Habitat for Humanity home.
75. Conduct a "diaper equity" survey of local establishments.
Commend managers who provide changing tables in men's as well as
women's restrooms.
Thanks to Tolerance.org for
many of the above ideas. Check out their Web site at: http://www.tolerance.org.
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