Diversity

Perhaps my own biological and cultural diversity, (my mother is a Roman Catholic Puerto Rican and my father is a Muslim from Iran), influences my own personal take on diversity; I believe that diversity prevents our world from being mind-numbingly boring. Who would benefit from a world where everyone is the same? Would new ideas emerge from minds bred to only believe certain things? Would the spark and creativity that characterize our modern world flourish under conditions that would inevitably crush them underfoot? I should think that even though a certain amount of comfort can be taken in familiarity, our society greatly profits from diversity.
There are some people who will persist in thinking that diversity is poison; they cling to their beliefs and traditions in order to be shielded from the evils that supposedly lurk in the unknown. Others will persecute and degrade those unfortunate people that do not conform exactly to their attitudes. I myself have encountered people who look down their noses at me because I am a product of two races and religions. (I pity these people who think that scraping the bottom of the gene pool will perserve their ways of life). I know of people who will tell a person to his or her face that because he or she is not of a certain religion they are damned to an eternity of suffering. Still others will be taunted because they are of a different sexual orientation or do not conform to their peers' expectations. Diversity is not something to be sneered at or feared; on the countrary, our differences make us interesting. Interacting with people different from ourselves forces us to examine our own thinking and broadens our perspectives. Surely only good can come from this "blending" of views. We as humans could learn many things together that will remain hidden from us should we persist in an ignorant isolation.