Was it something I said?

I asked Weekly Geekers to look at diversity in the blogs they read, and . . .

Wait, what was that?

Was that a pin I heard?

I do believe it was a teeny, tiny pin, dropping on the floor of the blogosphere!

Yes, it was a quiet week over at the Weekly Geeks headquarters. And I've been mulling over the many possible reasons for that, none of which are exactly giving me the warm fuzzies I'd hoped for.

But, it's time for me to do my part and write about some diverse bloggers. I'm not doing anything fancy here. I picked two bloggers who are different from me: Rich Watson, and C. Jane.

Rich Watson's Glyphs focuses on the black comics community. Given that I'm a white woman who reads just the occasional graphic novel, you might think that I'd find myself without the foggiest notion of what Rich is talking about some of the time, and you'd be right. But at Rich's first response to the Diversity Roll Call, I felt at home with him. Rich and I could be considered opposites in many ways, but in the ways that matter, we have much in common.

Next up: C. Jane blogs about her life as a young wife and mother, and a devout Latter-Day Saint. After her sister was devastatingly injured in a plane accident, C. Jane, brand new mother of her first baby, took in three of her sister's four young kids. That's a boatload of extra kids for a new mommy to take in. Thinking back to my early days of motherhood, I believe that this was insanity personified and at the same time, that it's the exact same thing I would do for my own sister. C. Jane and I are at opposite ends of the religious spectrum, and yet, beneath that is a fundamental sameness that keeps me reading.

And this was the point of my original question. Because I truly believe we're all connected, and that those surface differences are insignificant compared to the humanity at our core. If we limit ourselves to only those people who share the surface similarities with ourselves--if we skim a blog and don't return because that person Isn't Like Us--we're missing an opportunity to see that. But, if we gloss over the ways in which we're different, claiming that they don't matter or that we don't notice, then we're also missing an opportunity. Because others are living different lives and seeing the world from a different viewpoint from our own, and noticing those differences leads to a greater understanding of our world.

'K, I'll get off my soapbox now.

C.O.R.A. Diversity Roll Call questions are answered over the course of two weeks instead of one. So, if you missed that opportunity last week, another week stretches ahead of us and there is still time.