I Am Rainbow

I Am Rainbow

In today’s world, we all too often define diversity by the color of one’s skin. I find that to be a very narrow and insulting definition of diversity. I am not white. I am diverse. I am a left-handed male, raised in a small town by parents who stayed married until my mother died. My father’s second wife died of ovarian cancer. My father died of heart disease. I have been affected by the death of those around me due to diseases that know no cultural or ethnic boundaries.

Genetically, the origin of humanity can be traced to Africa and we all share the genes of that origin. I draw my recent genetics from a mix of German, English, Irish, Scottish, and Native American Potawatomi peoples. Culturally, I was raised in a small Midwestern town formed around a now abandoned coal mine. The town was populated by an equal mixture of first, second and third-generation immigrants from Italy, Germany, and England with a growing population of Hispanics. I heard Italian, German, English, and Spanish spoken on a regular basis and had friendships with people from all of these ethnicities. I delivered newspapers to several people with tattooed numbers on their arms. Later, as an adult, I realized these people were survivors of Nazi concentration camps. I grew up in farm country and learned to love nature. I have lived in cities where people have forgotten their connection to the land. I am an artist, thespian, photographer, musician, economist, teacher and environmentalist. I am a father, a husband and, a defender of the oppressed. Some of my family and friends are gay. Some are not. I have friends and family who believe in God and some who do not. I am a believer in equal rights and a supporter of providing equal opportunities regardless of gender, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. I do not support preferential treatment for any of these reasons. I support teaching a person to fish and hesitate simply giving them a fish.

Diversity in people can be likened to geographical and biological diversity. Some see Illinois as flat and boring. To see beauty, to see majesty, they have to see something that is big and obvious. They have to see mountains. When I see Illinois, I see incredible diversity, but it isn't in big and obvious ways, it’s more subtle, and it’s all around me. I see diversity in the small and beautiful differences in the landscape, plants and animals. Instead of just birds, I see many varieties of birds. Instead of just flowers, I see many varieties and colors of flowers. Instead of flat and boring, I see flowing landscapes with incredible interwoven diversity. The entire ecosystem is diverse if you just take a few moments to observe the small differences that combined make a landscape a natural community.

Some see diversity in humans by the color of one’s skin, one's gender, one’s sexual orientation, one’s national origin. I see diversity defined more by the many subtle differences that embody each of us, the small things which in sum define who we are. Diversity in humans is more than just the labels given from easily identifiable differences; it is everything that makes that person unique, as an individual, not as a member of a group. In physics, the color white is the combination of all colors of the rainbow; it is the consideration of all the details together. I am incredibly diverse. I am many things all at once. I reject the label of white, it’s too narrow, too prejudicial, too confining. I am rainbow.

Presented to the Illinois College Coalition for Ethnic Awareness Diversity Week -- November 2, 2012.

K. Klein