Jenn Jackson,
Canada.
I grew up in surroundings that were predominantly white, wanting to learn more about other cultures. I moved to an urban center and felt myself stuck; clumsy in the navigation of culturally diverse waters: focusing on differences, as opposed to similarities. It’s taken a long time, a lot of diversity training and many experiences that make me put my face in my hands and shake my head in retrospect. I will, no doubt, add a few more such experiences before the end of my life and welcome the learning that comes along with it. I suppose the thing that I hits me most acutely are the people who were party to some of these conversations, and still accepted me after the fact, recognizing that I was not being intentionally bias or intolerant…just human, flawed and deserving of another opportunity to see each other for more than our differing racial backgrounds.
