The Villager
February 3, 2005

by Joshua Cole

At the 12th annual Cherry Creek Diversity Conference on Jan. 29, 900 strangers from 82 high schools across the state gathered in the Fine Arts Theater at Cherry Creek High School starting at 8 a.m. By 4 p.m., after a day of discussions and workshops, they were no longer strangers but a unified network of friends and allies committed to the cause of diversity.

When the reggae act the Lion Soul Jahs Band invited everyone to "come up on the stage," the 200 or so students left--blacks, Latinos, whites, males, females, rural, urban, from public and from private schools--crowded the stage, screaming out and waving their hands as one.

Students and more than 100 sponsors trekked to Cherry Creek High School in the name of diversity. Students and sponsors from Cherry Creek, Cherry Creek P.R.E.P., Eaglecrest, Grandview, Littleton, Overland, Regis, Smoky Hill, St. Mary's Academy, and the Cherry Creek "I-team" high schools attended.

Representative Terrance Carroll gave the keynote address in the morning. Participants broke into small groups of about 20 for an hour of discussion and lunch. They then went to two out of 60 interactive workshops. Some of the workshops included a hate crimes mock trial, a game of Life for living in the city, gay-straight alliance support panel, Holocaust speakers, "Understanding Islam" among other panels, speakers and interactive activities.

Joe Chavez led "There is No Racism Problem in America," in which he described with humor the way minorities "stay on the ground as victims" looking for somebody else to help them. "That disease of weakness is spreading within and around you," he said, describing examples of teachers in some schools removing elimination games like dodgeball and musical chairs and replacing red ink with purple ink to allay children's egos. "You don?t want to see red ink? Study?

"You know how I learned to pick myself up? I took out the trash. It takes practice."

After the workshops, schools met to summarize and share their experiences during the day or create an action plan for the coming semester.

For Eaglecrest, which brought a contingency of about 20 to the conference, the main concern was finding unity among diversity and culture clubs while also making the clubs more diverse. At the conference, all were girls, and all but three were African-American. Also, although Eaglecrest has a plethora of diversity clubs, the clubs often do not work together despite having similar goals.

"I don't like that idea of people being color blind. Look at me and see that and be ok with that. Let's have a society that recognizes our differences," Eaglecrest counselor Chahnuh Fontes said.

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