Page 2 - Sonoma County Gazette August 2019

Dear Readers,
DIVERSITY... it’s in these pages every month, and on our website all month long. I’m not just talking about topics of interest...we try to have something for everyone. I’m talking about people diversity.
Not race and nationality diversity, either. We’re mostly a white, middle- class county. In the 50 years+ I have lived here, our colors have shifted dramatically. I was concerned when I moved here from the Northeast Coast in 1972. I was used to every color of skin and national origin that our earth has to offer. The term Melting Pot applied, especially in the cities where I launched from when I became a full adult. New York City, Phildelphia. Every color in the rainbow.
In fact, Phildelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, is where I learned that people of the same sex fall in love the same way people of mixed gender fall into relationships and family. Little did I know, until many years later, that my elder cousin was a lesbian hiding her love for Lillian. I thought Lillian was her roommate. How profoundly sad that she couldn’t celebrate their 30 year relationship with even her family.
The diversity I am referring to in the Gazette is the diversity of OPINIONS. I was thrilled when a I got a letter of admiration from a reader who is a as right-wing Republican as they come. THANK YOU for reading!
Yes, this paper leans left because I lean left. I was raised to believe “We are our brother’s keeper.” “Judge not lest ye be judged.” “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” These phrases were taught to me by my immigramt grandmothers. One English and the other Italian.
They lived their own kind of prejudice - “Those darkies, some of my best friends at work, but don’t you go bringing them home! Those Jews, Scotts, they’re all cheap and tight, but come meet my friend Natasha.” It went on. Calling people OTHER, but introducing me to the exception, the person who was a friend.
My heart breaks as I see our country falling into Us vs. Them because I KNOW that there will never be Peace on Earth...Good Will Toward ALL..nor Liberty and Justice for ALL, as long as we can’t “Love One Another.”
And so, in these pages are individuals, with individual opinions, all under one roof of the Gazette. Living in harmony on their Island of Unity.
As I admired a dog the other day, I asked...breed?
The dog’s person said “every mix possible.”
We love that in dogs. Pity we can’t love that in people.
2 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 8/19