Support for diversity more important than ever - Women's Agenda

Support for diversity more important than ever

Does anyone like having hard conversations? It can take significant effort, which is why we usually avoid them.

Yesterday I joined millions of Australians in watching the shocking events at the Lindt Café in Martin Place. It was truly awful viewing.

Across social media I saw people jumping to conclusions about the incident and about cultural diversity. A lot of this added to the distress for many people.

There will be lots of difficult discussions coming out of this. But it’s the looking we can do within ourselves that can offer the best answers.

Any reasonable person knows that extremists exist in every community. It is a societal duty to both call out and educate ill-informed and unaccepted views.

We face challenges to diversity at most turning points. It is too easy to turn our backs on a more inclusive and eclectic society in these times, but one — albeit major — incident does not represent an entire community.

It only represents the individuals involved and their very small number of supporters, if they have any supporters at all.

My father grew up facing racism and bigotry. He was the pudgy Greek kid at school being bullied for eating souvlaki and a bevy of other delicious Greek foods.

It is too easy for someone like him to hold regressive positions on inclusion because of what he went through. But Dad deals with people from a breadth of backgrounds and he’d never let an event like this diminish his trust in others. In fact, he is more interested in how he can help other people thrive and hold onto their heritage — especially in the face of difficult circumstances.

It is too easy to go backward on diversity in challenging times. We can’t dismiss the fact that we make the best decisions when we are educated and can harness our diversity as a group.

Accepting diversity is not always easy, in society or in a workplace. Despite the best of intentions, unconscious biases often come to the fore and some people become irrational.

One thing we can do is consider our reactions. Could that be offensive? Do we hold prejudices? Would we accept this from someone who looks like us? These are difficult things to come to terms with, and challenging conversations to have, but they can help us become better leaders in the long-run.

The duty is on all of us to set a standard of decency and respect. On what we will accept and what we will not.To achieve a more vibrant society, and more effective workplaces, we all need to support diversity and inclusion.

We are all in this together – it makes sense that we learn and share our experiences with each other to better develop our knowledge.

When you set out on your day ask what you will and will not accept, and who you will achieve it with.

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