The Diverse You

Can the embell­ished parts of you be a cov­er-up? Without yield­ing, how often do we tru­ly sit in
pride? Often enough, we believe the pre­ferred speck in our eyes before we know the true state
of another’s mind. Somehow it’s a chore to reflect before we shame on the things we observe. Is
it eas­i­er to become inter­est­ed in sit­u­a­tions that have no per­son­al depth in our own lives than to
smile and keep it moving?

Unfortunately, we quick­ly for­get how twist­ed our tongues can become. Why is it ever so easy to
cor­rupt a sim­ple man’s strut? In mid­dle school, when my eyes began to fol­low the crowds, I lost
myself. I became arro­gant and bossy, and some­how I land­ed in a new world. With a blink or even
a snap, the crown I wore began to tar­nish. I believed I had the right to judge oth­ers and had no
con­trol over myself.

I believe accept­ing the diverse us has the pow­er to inspire anoth­er side of the American dream. Our cur­rent stan­dard in soci­ety is cor­rupt­ing our present lives, and it is sched­ul­ing an attack on gen­er­a­tions onward.

At the young age of sev­en, I saw the diverse me. I saw my Afro and searched my appear­ance in
awe, and applaud­ed the roots that nour­ished my crown. My father and I had shared the same
coils. I enjoy shar­ing the gift of our fine­ly kinked hair, as this has always been a spe­cial bless­ing
giv­en to me.

As my truest inten­tions fad­ed through­out the halls of fifth grade, I began to be con­fused about the
stan­dards of my char­ac­ter. I allowed my sur­round­ings to take con­trol of my mind, and this led to
guilt and the ulti­mate destruc­tion of my rep­u­ta­tion and my gift of diver­si­ty. I began to judge my peers and would indulge in gos­sip, and that kept me from reach­ing the things that I deserved.

Somehow we choose the soul­ful man in the crowd and strip him head to toe — some­times even
with­out his knowl­edge. Who deserves to get searched for their out­ward appear­ance? It’s
shame­ful that we choose to degrade gifts that we will nev­er be able to recre­ate. The man or
woman you least expect to be great is actu­al­ly as bold as you and greater than your neg­a­tive
out­look. Do you stand taller than every­one else? Truly what root­ed this envi­ous spir­it that we see
amongst all of our diverse groups?

Earlier in the text, I opened a por­tal that had a stench, one that I expe­ri­enced in mid­dle school.
That was eight years ago, but it’s so rel­e­vant in telling this sto­ry because our trou­bles began from
some­where. We all have to back­track to expose the root of our pride.

How come we haven’t abol­ished slan­der? We have lib­er­ty in America; I thought that was some­thing to be proud of. For our rights to be a stage that we can all stand on, we have to
under­stand our true selves and undress our own embell­ished parts. Together, beau­ty can be
sprin­kled all over. 

The hope that our coun­try birthed in the sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry holds a gift that should be shared and loved by all. Independence is a gift. Our coun­try’s inde­pen­dence is a diverse gift for all if it includes love. I believe accept­ing the diverse us has the pow­er to inspire anoth­er side of the American dream. Our cur­rent stan­dard in soci­ety is cor­rupt­ing our present lives, and it is sched­ul­ing an attack on gen­er­a­tions onward.

Diversity is a gift that we can be proud of togeth­er. We have gen­er­a­tions wait­ing for us to make
a move in uni­ty. Children deserve to grow up under­stand­ing the face, and the impor­tance that
diver­si­ty can share. Do you think you can open your heart to see the rain­bows in the heart of our
Country?

I’ll close with this quote from Stephen R. Covey: “strength lies in dif­fer­ences, not in similarities.”