According to a new poll from The Public Religion Research Institute is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan research and education organization:
62 percent of Americans said they interact with people who didn’t share their race or ethnicity at least once a week, while 21 percent said that happened seldom or never.
21 percent? I understand that there are areas of the country that are racially homogeneous, but nearly one-quarter of all Americans don’t encounter racial diversity of any kind at the workplace or in their social circles?
Perhaps it’s simply a factor of where folks live, but I find this surprising.
Even more surprising:
22 percent said they seldom or never interacted with people outside of their religion. This means that almost one-quarter of Americans only associate with people who share their own religious beliefs.
Every single family member, friend, and colleague share your religion?
How is this even possible?
But here’s the strangest of all:
31 percent of Americans said they seldom or never interacted with people who did not share their sexual orientation.
This means that almost one-third of Americans don’t realize that at least some of their family members, coworkers, and friends are gay, either because:
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They are utterly obtuse
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They are so bigoted that their friends, coworkers, and family members are forced to conceal their sexual orientation from them.
The place where you live might be racially homogeneous (too bad for you), and it might even be religiously homogeneous (hard to imagine but also too bad for you), but there are absolutely, positively some gay people living amongst you, no matter what you may think or are being told.
Getting to know those people would be very good for you.
