The United States society is made up of people different cultures; they migrated into the country before it got its independence. Majority migrated to the United States in search of freedom. People who were facing persecution, torture or exiled from their country found United States a suitable place to escape from their miseries. Another group came to do business/trade, farming while others got employment opportunities. Unfortunately, other came to United States as slaves. As a result of this migration, cultural diversity was created. This diversity continues to be reinforced by international students who have decided to settle into the country. This culture diversity is what has enabled the United States to advance in all areas of the economy (Wiley, 2014). The stability of the country is maintained because of different ethnic groups. Countries that are made up three to two ethnic group face the risk internal conflict or war e.g. Iraq and Rwanda (Straus, 2013).
However, culture diversity can also create problems and conflicts in the society. These conflicts originate when a certain culture feel its superior than the others (Wiley, 2014). A good example for this is the perception between the white and the black races during the slavery decades and few individuals who still have the perception. Moreover, conflicts can also originate from the language barriers and differences in values/traditions. These differences can force divisions in the society that might have negative outcomes.
The culture diversity can create challenges and difficulty in a society whereby different races or religious groups fight each other due to divergent of opinion or beliefs. These differences can also be witness in marriages where couples are from different cultural groups. This can have a negative and devastating effect on the family if the differences are not solved quickly. Therefore, the first step in solving cultural conflict is respecting each other culture beliefs, traditions, values and norms. The mutual respects will open doors and opportunity for in-depth understanding of each other culture. This is because when a person sees the other person respect and appreciate his/her culture, the person will be more willing to explain why they practice certain aspect of their culture. The understanding and respect of the differences will enable the members the society to exchange ideas and borrow from each other. This will reduce the tension in the society, and the people will co-exist and live in peace. Since they understand why certain people in the society act/behave in a certain way (Yang et al., 2011)
Culture diversity in an organization
Organizations are increasingly going international to tap on the international market. Through promotion and transfer of staff, culture diversity is created. This diversity of employees has helped these organizations to penetrate the international market easily. This is because the employees can advise the management on the strategies which can work in a certain country and which cannot. For example, if an American company which wants to expand its operations/networks to Middle East and other Arabs countries, it will be wise to seek advice from its Muslims employees on which strategies to employ. Furthermore, during brainstorming or discussion on various issues that affect the organization, the organization can get a variety of views. This is as a result of having employees who have different and independent values, thinking capacity and traditions. Although, this can also be a source of conflict in the organization, but with good conflict resolution mechanism the problem can be solved amicably (Bell, 2011).
Conclusively, diversity in the culture is a wonderful thing which should be encouraged. However, caution should be taken how conflict and divergent of opinion/values is handle. If the diversity is not handled properly, it can create division in the society. These divisions can disturb the peace of the society.
Work cited
Bell, Myrtle. Diversity in organizations. Cengage Learning, 2011.
Straus, Scott. The order of genocide: Race, power, and war in Rwanda. Cornell University Press, 2013.
Wiley, Terrence G. "Diversity, Super-Diversity, and Monolingual Language Ideology in the United States Tolerance or Intolerance?." Review of Research in Education 38.1 (2014): 1-32.
Yang, Yang, and Alison M. Konrad. "Understanding diversity management practices: Implications of institutional theory and resource-based theory."Group & Organization Management 36.1 (2011): 6-38.
