Teaching Respect and Tolerance for All

“Visualize a map of the United States of America.  Go way up off the west coast to Alaska, then move eastward across the country to Montana and Wyoming, move way across the U.S. to Vermont, then come back southwest and picture our great state of Oklahoma.  Imagine not a single living human being alive in any of those states; that is six million.  Picture driving up from Texas, down from Kansas, across from Arkansas and Colorado and not seeing a single human being in this state.  That’s what 6 million is.  That is the number of Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.”  With this statement, Mike Korenblit gave a visual image of a number that is next to impossible to imagine to eighth grade students at East Middle School this week.

Mike is co-author of UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN, the true story of his parents, Ponca City residents Manya and Meyer Korenblit, who are Holocaust survivors.  He speaks to students throughout the country about the lessons of the Holocaust and how it relates to issues of today.   “The students were mesmerized,” said Barbara Davis, Principal of East Middle School.  “What a great storyteller!”  The fact is, all the stories are true.

Mike remembers well a pair of water fountains in a park and the bus station in downtown Ponca City.  It was there, at a very early age, that his father, Meyer, taught him about prejudice, bigotry and intolerance.  He showed his son the fountain for “coloreds” and the one for “whites.”

“My dad told me, ‘Always remember what I have shown you here today.  That is the reason you don’t have grandparents, because people looked at them as being inferior and less human than others’,” Mike said during a diversity assembly at East Middle School.  Mike and his wife, Joan, have taken this lesson to heart.  They are the founders of the Respect Diversity Foundation (RDF), a non-profit, tax exempt organization with educators who are artists, authors, civil rights leaders, musicians, historians and more who teach respect and tolerance for all people no matter their differences through diversity seminars and workshops.

One popular RDF program is the Respect Diversity Holocaust Art Education Project, funded in part by the Oklahoma Arts Council, the Oklahoma City Jewish Foundation, MidFirst Bank and the Hudiburg Auto Group.  Fifth through twelfth graders learn from Mike how the Holocaust relates to issues of today such as bullying, school shootings, the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Genocide in Rwanda, bigotry and intolerance.  Then, a musician or poet or visual artist follows Mike’s talk by facilitating diversity workshops.  The culmination is a collaborative song, poem or visual art piece that is showcased at the annual Respect Diversity Symbol Exhibit at Omniplex, a science and art museum in OKC.

Another RDF project is the annual Respect Diversity Art & Poetry Contest, launched in 2002 by Civil Rights Leader Clara Luper, the following year by Governor Brad Henry, and this year by First Lady Kim Henry.  East Middle School students began creating their collaborative contest entries as they learned about the art of writing Sonnets (14 line poems where every other line rhymes).  Inspired by Mike’s talk, author Joan Korenblit guided students in 20 English classes to create Sonnets that in some way show the importance of respect for diversity.

During a post assembly question and answer session, Mike explained that Human Rights Watch stated that 70,000 people died from disease and starvation in the last month in Darfur region of the Sudan. Our own Secretary of State Colin Powell called what is happening there is Genocide.  Mike challenged students, “If you think there’s nothing you can do about the humanitarian crisis in our world, think again.   Write letters to your two senators, the states’ five U.S. representatives, to Kofi Anan, Secretary General of the UN and to President Bush, with the signatures of all eighth graders and tell them to speak out and do something and do it now.”

To learn about more Respect Diversity Foundation projects visit www.respectdiversity.org, call 405/359-0369, or e-mail rdfrdf@cox.net.