Cultural Diversity Week Nine Final
Ken Jarrell
ETH/125
October, 7, 2012
Phillip Auld

Cultural Diversity Week Nine Final
Culture has many definitions in society it can be defined as group’s beliefs, behaviors, and other characteristics. Each culture and the way that they define themselves is what make up the values that are shared by society. Diversity simply defined is a variety of differences. A uniqueness of each cultures individual beliefs and behaviors. The United States is a nation of a most diverse culture and race of people in the world.
Gaining a better understanding of the diversity in the United States can be accomplished by taking a closer look at how some of the groups of people are identified. According to, (Schaefer, 2012), there four types of minority or subordinate groups in the United States racial, ethnic, religious, and gender. Racial groups are the grouping of people that are set apart socially by their physical differences color being the most obvious. Other differences are at the mercy of what society will deem as different or obvious. Racial groups are designated more by their physical differences rather than their cultural differences. Ethnic groups are groups set apart from others because of their national origin or distinctive cultural patterns (Schaefer, 2012). Ethnic groups depend on where you are from geographically. Religious groups are associated with a religion other than the dominate religion. The Protestants outnumber the other religions as a group while the Roman Catholic makes up the largest minority religious group. Gender is the fourth group. Gender is another attribute that creates dominate and subordinate groups (Schaefer, 2012). Even though the female population exceeds the male population, males are still considered the majority.
With gaining a better understanding about culture and diversity, allowed a deeper look into the roots of my family. The exact reason for the departure into North America has been reasoned to be for economic gain and other freedoms that were not allowed in and across Europe. As it stands now the Jarrell name has been identified with United States mainstream culture. Yet less than 100 years ago the family was impoverished in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky and the only source of income was from either farming or the occupation of a coal miner. Which to survive the family did both. As coal miners they were required to work in hazardous conditions and because they were poverty stricken there was no choice. With Jarrell becoming a mainstream culture in the United States has allowed them all rights and amenities they have faced little to no challenge as far as advancement in corporate America or obtaining an education.
Immigration into the United States has not slowed from the early settlers. The United States has been the object and goal of many families to come to America where you can live free and work to support your family. The population of the United States is rapidly growing do to more people coming into the states for many different reasons. The major role of immigration in national growth builds on the pattern of recent decades, during which immigrants and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren accounted for most population increase (Passel, Cohn, 2008). Studies show that 19 percent which is about one in five Americans will be an immigrant in the year 2050 (Passel, Cohn, 2008) and with current trends continuing the population of the United States could rise in excess of 400 million people. The increase will be directly related to immigration into the United States. In fact since 1980, the U.S. has added 55 million people to its population, which is equal to the entire population of France (Camarota, 2001).
With immigration comes diversity. Diversity goes far beyond race, color, and religion. It is the many differences between individuals including race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical abilities, jobs, and education, and personalities (Andrade, 2011). Diversity is the uniqueness that makes the United States what it is today. Challenges are faced with diversity along with benefits. Diversity can foster thoughts or question about fairness. This is due to prejudice and discrimination. But for that reason policies and guidelines are set into place to help with the issues of fairness. Diversity in the work place carries many benefits even through its complexity. It would seem easier to manage a group of people who would all have a similar mindset, although these people do not always have the ability to get along with each other. Workplace diversity is evolving and there many issue. Diversity in the workplace will not fit all for the reason that, “organizations are in different stages of development regarding workplace diversity” (Lockwood, 2005). Diversity will encompass all dimensions race, age, ethnicity, and gender. While also dealing with religion, socioeconomics, and education, diversity has a wide and vague definition. The workplace is just one area that is affected by diversity. The challenges faced by having such a diverse society will be the overcoming of any prejudice and discrimination towards those migrating into the U.S. boarders. The positive effects that diversity brings will and should greatly outweigh any negatives. Having a diverse society allows for many differences to be experienced, not only with people but within others ethnic backgrounds like food, music, and religion.
With many different cultures combined into one society there bound to be some clashes of different backgrounds. Questions have been raised about how to engage the many different groups to become accepting of each other without losing touch with their individuality as a culture. Pluralism is only one of the possible responses to this diversity (Eck, 2006). Cultural pluralism is a smaller group in society that has been able to maintain their cultural identities, values, and practices. Which in turn they are then accepted by the dominate culture of society. For pluralism to be true it has to be more than one race or culture tolerating the other. It will require the different cultures to become knowledgeable and aware of each other’s differences. Tolerance is important but by itself it most likely will fail because it will not require people to know anything about each other. This leaves only the stereotypes of preconceived ideas about another person’s ethnic background, which in turn can lead to prejudices and discrimination.
Stereotypes and prejudice has been the ongoing issue with a society as diverse as the United States. There many things that keep the ideas about different cultures and ethnic backgrounds from being the celebration of differences among people. Who we see, hear, and read on television, radio, newspapers, and in the movies has a great deal of influence on shaping the attitudes of all society. The media has perpetuated this by only portraying certain groups of people to the stereotyped image of society. The Asian always working in the laundry or knowing martial arts, the Hispanic or Latino playing roles as gang bangers or drug dealers the Black race has also been poorly portrayed in the media with some of the same stereotypes as the Hispanic race. The media has had positive influence on dispelling the stereotypes of different cultures as well as the perpetuation of them. Many shows now are showing minorities in places of authority and well to do families. The media has also been a positive influence by having mixed race relationships. We are seeing more and more in television and movies that it is acceptable for not only mixed race relationships but also same sex relationships. The media plays a part in the perception and attitudes of society towards issues such as race, religion, and sexuality. Depending on the portrayal it can sway society to a positive or negative attitude.
Diversity in the United States is here and it will continue to grow. We as a nation have to come together and look past the differences in color, religion, cultural differences, and ethnic backgrounds. Reducing prejudice and gaining an awareness of just how important all the different cultures have become to society. By educating the next generation to appreciate differences and celebrate them will do more for reducing the attitudes of prejudice and discrimination. Each person can make a difference by standing for diversity and standing against prejudice. The legal obligation is reaffirmed for all States to promote “universal respect for, and observance and protection of, all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all” (Shenker, 1995).
It needs to be the responsibility of each person to protect the rights of all. What we need to be reminded of is that racism has been a part of society for a long time and will be difficult to remove from it. Take a look at the children the play together and notice differences but a mostly “color blind”. But as they grow older the attitudes and ideologies are taught or learned from the model of the parents. This can become negative attitudes towards other races or they may be positive. It takes one person to make enough noise as Dr. King did in the 1960’s to bring forth an awareness to society that changes need to be made before we as a nation of different cultures will survive together as one people celebrating each culture or race diversity.

References
Andrade, S. (2011, May). Diversity Challenges. Retrieved from http://technorati.com
Camarota, S. (2001, August). The Impact of Immigration on U.S. population Growth. Retrieved from http://cis.org
Eck, D. (2006, Summer). From Diversity To Pluralism. Retrieved from http://pluralism.org
Passel, J., & Cohn, D. (2008, February). U.S. Population Projections. Retrieved from http://pewsocialtrends.org
Shenker, D. A. (1995, March). The Challenge of Human Rights and Diversity. Retrieved from http://un.org
Lockwood, R. N. (2005). Workplace Diversity. Leveraging the Power of Difference for Competitive Advantage, 50(6), 1-19.
Schaefer, R. T. (2012). Racial and Ethnic Groups. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.