I always find myself reminded that everyone comes from their own place with their own experiences.
Example 1: Talking with a classmate on a trip about how for her, our tiny rural college town is “overwhelmingly white” and “lacks so much culture” and she longs for the city in our state she’s from, where she can get real ethnic food.
Example 2: Read an article about a girl from an extremely rural area in the same state, who came to our college and was overwhelmed by how much culture there was here compared to where she came from.
So the same location is both culturally boring and culturally diverse, depending on who you’re talking to, because a person’s history matters.
You cannot expect everyone to have the same background, so when you try to explain something to someone, remember there might actually be a far bigger divide between the two of you than you realise.
If you’re trashing something for not being diverse enough, when compared to where that person came from, the thing is REALLY diverse, they’re not going to understand you and think you’re just a hypercritical asshole. That’s because your expectations are set to very different levels, and that’s okay.
You have to figure out how to communicate non-condescendingly with people. You have to figure out how to accept that not everyone is coming from the same place as you, and this doesn’t mean they are “behind” or “backwards”, it just means they’re different.