Twenty-fourth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

When all fails, you can always on count the multicultural self. How can you not see the light in the tunnel if you are the light itself? It is indeed multicultural to be the light in the tunnel. The growing diversity in our world affirms the need for perceiving the world as a global village, it is becoming increasingly important to address the isms (both negative and positive ones) governing our interactions with each. The negative isms, sexism, racism, ableism, classism, etc. can be mitigated with the adherence and practice of the positive isms such as multiculturalism, anti-racism, and feminism. With emphasis on positive isms, such as multiculturalism, and antiracism, I argue that in order to mitigate negative isms such as racism, sexism, ableism, classism, etc., we need not just address issues at the theoretical level; we need to practice/live isms in our real-life interactions with individuals, thus have our theoretical works, research, publications be informed by our lives in pursuit of praxis at its best. To be truly multicultural is to be our true selves, to be human first. To affirm one’s humanity one has to be their authentic truly multicultural self! To truly affirm diversity, we must perceive all voices as legitimate roads to an inclusive world. We can only do this from a standpoint of multiculturalism by advocating true and meaningful education, creating awareness of inequity, social injustices in our communities, organizations, nations and our increasingly shrinking world that can be describe as a global village.