June 14, 2010—Despite the heated debates raging over immigration law, America’s multi-racial, multi-ethnic society is still the foundation of our strength. One online magazine and website, USARiseUp.com provides a peaceful, yet engaging and honest forum for exchanging dialogue across race and cultural lines. The website fosters the connective tissue between race, cultures, ethnicities, and religions, proving that America really can be a colorfully diverse salad bowl of people, and not just an assimilated melting pot.
With writers from across the nation, and throughout the world, this online publication is committed to offering conversation from all points of view.
Publisher and Executive Editor, Janice S. Ellis, says that by "tackling hot-button issues such as racial, ethnic, and religious diversity, we can begin to bridge our differences, and come together to solve these ongoing issues."
Although there are many departments and Blog Zone sections within this unique website, one magazine department, titled, "Sticky Wicket," allows readers to pose questions they may not otherwise discuss. "Our writers respond to these sensitive and tough questions, the ones that we normally do not talk about in "polite" conversation," says Ellis. "They go the extra mile by interviewing the experts and conducting their own research to provide in-depth answers to the readers."
Ellis adds that while our society has become more multicultural, we still need to address the fact that simply seeing people of a different color, ethnicity or religion, does not mean we have accepted or changed our views of people of a different racial, ethnic or religious background.
We cannot define our societal identity by allowing a dominant culture to ignore or marginalize the presence and contributions of minority cultures. Rather, we must define it by permitting our individual identities to contribute to the whole. Through its articles, USARiseUp.com provides an opportunity for a person or group’s ethnic, racial, and religious identity to shine as it increases knowledge to help us better understand our differences.
"It is too easy to stay in the comfort zone of our surroundings, letting our sons and daughters believe that the world is solely made up of what is familiar," says Ellis. "For any country to be a superpower or global leader, its own cultural identity should be a beautiful mosaic of the world itself. As a truly global community, we must accept each tile in this vast mosaic of racially diverse people."
USARiseUp.com is committed to continuing its message of open communication, and educating ourselves about race, ethnicity, and culture in a global society. Ellis points out that by "staying in the dark only hinders our progress as a people. It is through open dialogue that we can learn from each other how to live peacefully and productively. Shelter from the unknown inevitably breeds ignorance."