On Monday, students at Dirigo High School celebrated Diversity Day.

It was a day to celebrate differences in culture, age, gender, politics, orientation, religion and more.

Diversity is not, as some blogosphere chatter might have you believe, a four-letter word.

It is our reality.

No one person is like another, so when we celebrate diversity we celebrate being human.

Dirigo is among thousands of schools across this country that observe diversity and teach tolerance, where students and teachers learn that being different makes us who we are as individuals and communities.

These are tough lessons, and there are plenty of examples throughout history when Americans have not embraced the differences in others — think systematic massacre of native Americans, slavery, internment of Japanese-Americans, and the more personal crimes against Matthew Shepard in 1998 and against 10 Amish girls gunned down at their school in 2006.

On Monday, the Maine Human Rights Commission found that a Lewiston man had been harassed “out of his home” by a neighbor simply because he is Jewish.

While individuals may pride themselves on their personal tolerance of others, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups, “Patriot” groups and nativist groups is on the increase in recent years.

The rate of hate crimes is also on the increase, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Hate has a hold in this country, especially among groups that — descended from immigrants themselves — are vehemently anti-immigration.

And it seems to be hate of immigrants themselves, not necessarily hate of the policies enacted by our elected officials governing immigration.

Our nation has a long and mixed history of various measures of tolerance and hate, but true American pride is built on our diversity and maintained through our tolerance for one another.

Isn’t it?

It is at Dirigo High School in Dixfield.

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.