Celebrate difference!
Imagine a garden with only one kind of flower. Phlox here, phlox there, phlox in every bed, white phlox everywhere you look. Boring, isn't it? Just possibly we are neurologically (or at least through childhood conditioning) wired to want everyone we meet to be mirror reflections of ourselves. "Everybody should be exactly like me." Therefore, when they aren't, there is immediate distrust. How to get over this reflex? Through teaching? Through the media? Anywhere at all. So a new reflex results: "Oh, here's someone different from myself--interesting, cool, awesome, fabulous. Just think I'm not going to hear the same old thing from this person, who is a different gender from me, a different nationality, a different 'race', a different ethnicity, a different economic status, speaking a different language, following a different religion, living a different sexual orientation." Don't be terrified! Talk to them! Learn something new! It will be interesting. Celebrate difference!