By Cindi E. Deutschman-RuizCourtesy of The Poynter Institute
Several years ago, when I was working in public radio and television in Central Pennsylvania, I developed a multimedia project called "Race Matters." The project explored the intersection of race and everything I could think of: parenting, relationships, education, humor, literature and health/heath care, among many other topics.
I never addressed whether race is important; whether racism is wrong; or whether racism is a current reality or a historical fact. That's because the existence of "Race Matters" itself was an answer to all those questions: Yes, race is important. Yes, racism is wrong. Yes, racism persists.
It is no longer problematic in our country to have discussions in which these answers are understood as facts. There’s no more need to debate them these days than to argue over whether the Earth is flat, or exists at the center of the universe.
But envision a project about sexuality, not race, and imagine its basic assumptions to be that sexuality has always existed along a continuum; that there is nothing unnatural or sinful about it; and that expressions of condemnation for homosexuality just perpetuate prejudice.
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