I have to write an essay about the importance of accepting others as they are. Any ideas??

You could write about stereotypes (pick two or three) and how they keep us from seeing people as individuals. Sometimes the stereotypes fit (or should I say, people fit the stereotype they are boxed into), but most of the time, if a person is considered as an individual instead of part of a group (racial, ethnic, age, occupation, or ??), he or she is very different from what another person might expect. You could start out with that old and trite -- yet true -- saying, "You shouldn't judge a book by its cover."

=)