Diversity’s virtues preached at King Day celebration

WASILLA - While Martin Luther King Jr. Day might be a day off from work for a lot of folks, to at least a theater full of Valley residents, it was a time to reflect on diversity and a rapidly changing modern world.

"When I was growing up, when we talked about diversity in America we talked about a melting pot," Anchorage District Court Judge Pamela Scott Washington told those assembled in Valley Performing Arts' Machetanz Theater.

Washington gave the keynote address to the 10th annual celebration of the Mat-Su Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation. She said the melting pot idea doesn't work so well anymore. In a stew, she pointed out, when the preparation is done all the ingredients - broccoli, meat, potatoes - end up looking the same.

"When you think about America today, we are all so different, we are like a big salad bowl," she said.

Washington is something of a trailblazer in the state's judiciary.

"It's pretty overwhelming for me to think I am the first African American woman to serve on the judiciary of the state of Alaska, because when I think about firsts I think of older people," she said.

She was only the second African American of any gender appointed to the bench and said she was the only African American girl to graduate from Chugiak High School in her class.

As an attorney, Washington said, she was often a single African American in a building full of white attorneys. But, she said, she made sure to always be positive in her interactions with colleagues.

"I had to constantly educate people. But you can't really do that if you're offended," Washington said.

She noted that diversity is a positive force in society, pointing out that to start his non-violent movement in the 1960s, one that "destroyed segregation forever" in the United States, King borrowed from someone completely different from himself. King based a lot of his work on that of Mahatma Gandhi in India.

She encouraged audience members to promote diversity by inviting people into their homes or just talking to people and making a difference that way.

"Get on board and let's be the change agents for the future," she said.

Rev. Steve Beem with Palmer Highway Church of God pointed out to the crowd that tolerance doesn't have to mean endorsing someone else's behavior.

"We're not going to like everyone and what they do. We're not going to care for everyone and what they do. But we need to love them," Beem said. "We need to learn to love one another as brothers and sisters because we are all part of the family of God."

Fred Ledbetter, a member of the Mat-Su MLK Foundation's board of directors, pointed out that the scholarships the group gives out help promote diversity. Education prepares kids to enter a diverse world. The scholarships are also given to kids regardless of race. There have been four handed out so far - two to African Americans, one to an Asian American and one to a white student.

Foundation president Melvin Sage-El agreed that the scholarships do good things, noting how expensive it is to send a child to college.

"We know it's expensive, we'd like to give more money, but we've got to have more," he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.