A Dialogue Was Had By All

Last night, I attended the Diversity Dialogue at Central Library. There was a huge turnout, resulting in extra tables and chairs being brought in and some difficulty in hearing the other people at your table. Great to see so many people care about connecting on this issue.

Being new to Arlington, I found it a good chance to meet a lot of different Arlington leaders and residents. There were 4 County Board members there (Chairman Tejada, Barbara Favola, Chris Zimmerman, and Mary Hynes) as well as 1-2 School Board members.

As far as the conversations that I participated in (you sat at 3 different tables during the evening and answered 3 different questions), I felt that they lacked depth. Most of the people in attendance were there because they were passionate about diversity and meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds. In other words, there was some preaching to the choir going on. I really enjoyed the chance to meet all of these different people, but I don't know how much was accomplished as far as generating ideas for how to improve Arlington's diversity and inclusion of all persons. Other tables seemed to generate some concrete examples of what the County could do and all of our ideas were recorded on a big mural that will be added to as the project continues.

Good News - there are 2 more chances for YOU to participate and add a different perspective, spark some debate and make this effort as productive as possible.

The next one is Thursday, October 16th at Barrett Elementary School.
Sign up today!! (you need to register ahead of time so they can plan how many tables and facilitators they need)