April 27, 2000
'Embracing diversity' should be about eliminating distraction associated with prejudice
Diversity is a difficult topic for most, but particularly so for a community that prides itself in being among the best of the best. It's unquestionable, at least in my mind, that the Lab's technical leadership is second to none. What perhaps is less evident, at least according to the just released Work Environment Survey, is our institutional (and personal) commitment to meaningful inclusion of and respect for differences (ethnic or otherwise).
The recent forum letter by Lab employee Pete Ayala highlights this perception [April 26 letter]. It radiates similar internalized pain expressed in this forum a few weeks back by another employee -- a woman who revealed how she'd been tormented by sexual harassment at the Lab, and then by the retaliation that followed after she complained about it. Ayala's letter also reminded me of a fair-skinned green-eyed Hispanic girl I met in college who, despite her fair features carried deep scars from the bias she and her family endured living in a southern New Mexico community. It reminded me of a relative of Native American descent who still, 50 years later, seethes at being forced to the back of a bus while serving in the armed forces stationed in Texas. It reminded me of the 90-year-old Hispanic woman who, in a local newspaper account, described how her family was forcibly removed from their Los Alamos homestead at the start of WWII, and how she still mourns the related loss of livelihood and dignity.
Inequity rooted in prejudice is a ball and chain on the human spirit, and on society at large. It is a burden that weighs down every relationship and encounter we have. It knows no racial, gender or cultural boundaries, hence the common interest we all have, as human beings, in eliminating it whenever and wherever we can. Comedian Richard Pryor perhaps said it best after returning from an extended stay in Africa. Describing what it felt like living in Africa he said, "It was a great, man but weird because there I was, surrounded by a sea of black faces, and for the first time in my life I forgot I was black." He wasn't implying that African society was perfect, but that we all have enough legitimate day-to-day survival challenges without the added burden of prejudice in our lives. Thus for me "embracing diversity" at the Laboratory should be about eliminating the distraction (inequities) associated with prejudice so that we all can excel as human beings and as an institution.
--Chuck Montaño