Southern Poverty Law Center Holds Diversity Workshop

     When people decide to cross social boundaries, communication

 

 is the best vehicle to transport them, according to Lecia Brooks.

 

Brooks, of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., said that when people

communicate openly and effectively, it can be life-changing because it makes important

connections outside one's identity group.

Brooks led a faculty/staff workshop, "Diversity Matters," at the University of West Georgia on

 Wednesday, the purpose of which was to discuss what diversity is, what it's not and why

we should engage in understanding it.

There will be another session tonight at 7 p.m. in the Campus Center ballroom that is open to the public.

"I am fascinated by identity and identity politics," she said. "Our identity is shaped

initially by our name -- something that is given to us. From there, characteristics about

who we are and what groups we belong to further identify us."

But, Brooks said, it is often those same characteristics that lead people to build barriers

that inhibit interaction and communication.

Brooks said she is inspired by the dialogue of the civil-rights era and the forthright

discussions that occurred then about sensitive subjects such as race.

"I grew up in a time when it was good to talk, and I want to move back to that," she said.

That kind of communication, Brooks said, empowers people to understand each other and themselves.