Diversity is a fact of life – and an opportunity

On a schoolyard playground in Georgia, happy voices from around the world ring out. Children whose parents were born on different continents play together. Children whose forebears oppressed each other, colonized and exploited each other, fought revolutions and waged wars over whose sacraments to God were most favored, now kick soccer balls and hold hands and make friends without feeling the burden of that awful history.

People have done terrible things to one another and built walls to hold each other back for thousands of years. We are social creatures who thrive on community, and yet paradoxically we also create institutions to separate ourselves into factions and create enemies out of neighbors. Then we enshrine these institutions as cherished traditions.

Adults are charged with carrying on these traditions, but children are born free.

In DeKalb County, Georgia, the world has come to make its home in a profound and promising…