We at The Item believe that the communities we serve are microcosms of our country at large. As such, we have many of the same hopes, fears, dreams, and ambitions — and prejudices — as the rest of our multicultural and multiethnic society.
It is time for us to begin that long overdue and extremely uncomfortable conversation on bigotry.
The Item’s mission is to inform, educate, provoke thought, and prompt a smile in reflecting the communities we cover. Today we address the “provoke thought” part by beginning a conversation about what divides us. We will publish this series on our Facebook page, our website, and in our newspaper. We want to talk honestly on bigotry. We are looking for your stories, your experiences, and honest introspection; which brings us to our question:
“Am I a bigot?”
Am I against people of a different race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, age, physical ability, socioeconomic group, or even body type? Our mission is to examine ourselves, hold up a theoretical mirror and look inward.
We begin this ongoing series today with the thoughts of an African-American woman and a white man; tomorrow, a Colombian woman and an overweight man; Wednesday, an Irish-American man and a woman with a disability; and Thursday, an Asian-American man and two Jewish students. Your reactions will follow online and in print.
We invite you to join us on this journey. Let’s have a real conversation about something that really matters.