What's your opinion about multiculturalism?

I keep asking myself at least once every year “Why is the 21^st century mankind mentality still the same as a few centuries ago?” It´s mind-blowing! A big part of human population still has issues dealing with a person who has a different skin colour, speaks a language that sounds weird, dresses differently, has his/her own beliefs, possesses a big bank account, respects animals as members of the big planetary family and therefore is a vegetarian, has his/her own crazy style, etc. The point is, most people are still too imprisoned in the stereotype concept and it seems hard to change it. History has proven it.

Prejudice and ignorance are the main barriers that keep us from reaching equality. It can exist a small group of people who wants to change things and prove we can all live together, in harmony, make the difference. However, a house isn´t made of a couple of bricks. I think the first step to achieve equality is in education. At school, when a child wonders why his little classmate has a different skin colour, the teacher should say “See, little Johnny, when we are born, God releases a little magic powder upon us. You received the gift of having a gorgeous white skin and being a smarty and Emily earned the gift of having a stunning and shiny black skin and singing like an angel. So, as you can see, Johnny, we are all special in our own way, all made by the same and no one´s better than anyone.” Simple things like these can in fact change the way we see and understand things and people.

By the time humanity throws away their narrow minded sense, quits the old ideals, principles, morals and, mainly, abandons envy, greed, pride, arrogance,  and embraces love and only love, multiculturalism will flourish. We will all be able to live in a global society where prejudice won´t be a word of our dictionaries.

There´s a small sentence but very meaningful to me that I consider to be the key to a successful multicultural world, and I would like to share it with you: “When you truly love yourself, you will definitely be able to love your human counterpart”.

(Bruna, 11^th grade)