Statistically speaking, this is Springfield: About 57 percent Republican, 51 percent married with children and 92 percent white.
The census and Greene County voter data show a snapshot of the southwest Missouri community in recent years.
While a host of groups have begun working on cultivating a more diverse area, advocates say the trick is to promote a community that is welcoming to people of all backgrounds and belief systems, even when those cultures are at odds with one another.
“Those issues have to be brought to the forefront, to the point where people can at least discuss it and learn to agree to disagree without being disagreeable,” said architect John Oke-Thomas, president and CEO of Oke-Thomas & Associates Inc., who has been involved in the diversity discussion with the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce and as co-founder of advocacy group Minorities in Business. “The whole issue is to recognize that we all come from different backgrounds, different orientations, and therefore, the respect should be there. Not necessarily accepted, but at least you have to respect other peoples’ thinking, other peoples’ way of life.”
Getting all parties to the table can sometimes be a challenge. Stephanie Perkins, southwest Missouri field organizer for St. Louis-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality advocate Promo, is working to add sexual orientation and gender identity to state and local governments’ nondiscrimination act. Perkins said Springfield’s human rights statute, which has a section for housing, employment and public accommodation, doesn’t include such protections for the LGBT community. In Springfield, she said, people can get fired from a job, evicted from rental housing or refused public services – such as a restroom or ridership on a bus – for being gay or perceived as being gay. Such things happen, she said.
“For firings, I probably get four to five calls a month on a heavy month. It varies,” Perkins said. “But no month goes by where I get zero.”
Once a month, Perkins will take a call from someone who has been denied public accommodation, and every few months, she hears from an evicted tenant, she said, adding that a couple of times a week, people call looking for a LGBT-friendly place to work.
“I get calls anywhere from service workers looking to be a server at a restaurant, all the way to nurses who are moving to Springfield and wanting to know where they can work and feel safe,” she said.
Yolanda Lorge, president of Grupo Latinoamericano, said she’s noticed shifts in the reception the Hispanic community has received in Springfield.
“In the case of Hispanics, since we aren’t either black or white, many of us blend with either race. At first, we were kind of invisible,” she said. “Then in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, the buzzwords were diversity and multiculturalism and everyone wanted to know about our culture.”
At the time, Lorge recalls, a lot of groups wanted to hold fiestas, and the Ozark Empire Fair even adopted a Hispanic theme one year, called Fairesta.
“It was embraced. And then a decade later, because of the issue of illegal immigration … with talk radio and TV, and so forth, people started getting another idea and another image of immigrants and Hispanics, in general. Attitudes started changing,” she said.
“When the fair had one day, Latino Day, three years ago, they had protesting. I’ve never heard any protests about OktoberFest or Greek Day or St. Patrick’s Day. But they had a Latino Day, and you would think they were going to give the country away to Mexico or something.”
The business world isn’t forced to mirror the belief systems of its leaders and employees, though Perkins noted there is something of a trickle-down effect. Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), she noted, has adopted protections related to sexual orientation in its nondiscrimination policies, and while the decision was made at a corporate level, the protections extend to employees at the store level.
“A lot of times, when people move to different companies, that mindset moves with them,” she said.
Another large corporation that has adopted a diverse culture is JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM).
“All employees can bring their whole selves to work. That includes background, lifestyle, education,” said Jennifer Walsh, human resources site lead at Chase Card Services in Springfield, 303 E. Republic Road. “At Chase, I don’t think anyone is left out. It’s all of us.”
Walsh said what started as a grassroots initiative by Chase employees has turned out to be a key to the company’s inclusive culture. Employee network groups, created and run by staffers who feel a common link, help support career development, community outreach and diversity initiatives within the company. Often groups have a month long heritage celebration, she said.
The acceptance level has grown in the five years since Walsh started working at Chase Card Services, she said. Not everyone, however, wants to understand other groups, particularly during the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community celebration each June, she said.
“We had some employees who maybe misunderstood what diversity means at Chase,” Walsh said. “I think it’s about recognizing that we’re not here to change anyone’s belief system. We are part of a local community. This is who we are, and we aren’t going exclude. We’re going to include.”
As business leaders consider diversity within their companies, Oke-Thomas said the hope is they’ll take another look at their policies and question whether they’re open to diversity. After all, he said, population trends indicate that it won’t be long before minorities become the majority.
How inclusive is your company? Missouri State University is hosting two summits next year to help business leaders consider diversity within their own organizations, said Leslie Anderson, interim vice president for diversity and inclusion at MSU.
On Feb. 22, a summit targeted toward business owners and upper management will explore different ways to evaluate how inclusive or exclusive organizations are, she said.
On April 28, a second summit will teach management teams how to respond to what was learned in the first summit, she said.
Companies interested in attending can contact Anderson at (417) 836-3736 or
alanderson@missouristate.edu.
57% Greene County citizens who voted Republican in the last presidential election, according to county clerk records
51% Households in the Springfield metropolitan statistical area consisting of married people with families, according to the U.S. Census 2005 American Community Survey[[In-content Ad]]
