Walk through the HUB at lunchtime, and look around at the groups eating. After observing the different clusters of groups sitting throughout the HUB, it is quite evident that generally, people of the same race sit together. Is this because, as a student body, we are not diverse enough or not assimilated enough?
All throughout the recent USG campaigns, we heard the clamor of more diversity programs and diversity education at Penn State. Needing some clarification about what more diversity means, I went to my thesaurus to find related words. Related words for diversity are: difference, dissimilarity, distinction, divergence, and unlikeness.
Certainly, the Penn State community does not need to become more divergent by focusing on differences. Diversity is championed by well-meaning, but misguided members of this campus. The rhetoric of diversity is dangerous to the Penn State community as it focuses on the dissimilarities between people instead of trying to form common bonds.
Instead, Penn State needs to turn its attention to becoming a better-assimilated community. The related words for assimilation are: awareness, consciousness and mindfulness. These concepts are far more useful for integrating the Penn State community.
The Supreme Court decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education was that "separate is inherently unequal." While equity in our society is slowly advancing, our campus and our nation are still entirely too segregated in all facets of life.
In approximately 50 years, the United States will become the first nation in the history of the world not to have a majority race as the white population will dip below 50 percent. Therefore, the challenge of tomorrow must be taken up today on college campuses all over the nation as people of different backgrounds learn to accept each other.
Assimilation is the process by which the goal of acceptance and tolerance will be achieved. Assimilation does not mean that everyone must be alike in order to coexist. Instead, assimilation will start the process of people coming together to learn about each other and from each other. It focuses on our overwhelming similarities while being ever mindful and conscious of our differences.
Without initially focusing on some similarities, though, we will not get the dialogue started.
As a member of the majority usually wherever I go, I do not always understand minority perspectives on the world. And through this constant focus on diversity that we hear everyday at Penn State, it will be hard for me to ever understand.
Last week, the Legislative Black Caucus came up from Harrisburg to discuss race relations at Penn State.
Unfortunately, the signs around campus advertising the event and the information in the Collegian about the event stated that it was only open to minority students. The solution to racial problems does not involve closed-door meetings and it does not involve personal attacks. Until we stop shouting at each other and, instead, start listening to each other, the solution will remain out of reach. When we focus on difference, we allow ourselves to becoming divided. As Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Herein lies the overarching problem when dealing with race, sexuality, or religion: People get defensive and overemotional when they feel that they are under assault, and when this happens, there can be no logical evaluation of the problem.
Our newly elected USG president and vice president wanted to revamp the executive branch by joining Women's Affairs with Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual, Transgender Allies. They came under much fire for their proposal because, as the Collegian editorial noted, "They are entirely different groups and, thus, have different needs. Combining them gives an undeniable impression that their respective issues are important enough to stand as an independent department."
I think the Collegian had it wrong in this case. Yes, there are underlying differences but the goal and the basic need is the same — equal treatment in all realms of life.
It would be a novel idea to combine Women's Affairs, LGBTA, and Multicultural Affairs into one department called Assimilation with the goal of building a more aware, more conscious, more mindful Penn State. But these groups wrongly thought they were under attack from USG President Justin Zartman, and they fought back by declaring that their needs were important enough to have a cabinet position in USG.
Well, the cabinet positions were reinstalled and they thought they won, but they were wrong as well.
Zartman was correct in his premise that fewer cabinet positions would produce greater efficiency in the USG executive branch.
But the reason for combining these departments goes beyond just efficiency.
Through combining their resources, all minority groups on this campus could join forces, assimilate, and better disseminate the message of tolerance and acceptance out to the university community.
As individual entities, they cannot accomplish their goals nearly as well as they are divided by their diversity. The inability of these groups to see past the end of their nose keeps them divided and produces a variety of different messages to hit the student body instead of one focused, polished, forceful message.
The words of Martin Luther King Jr. remind us that assimilation, not diversity, is the way to acceptance: "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. . . . When all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'
We must listen to the voice of Dr. King and come together and focus on things that will unite us instead of divide us.
We should first ask ourselves what we have in common rather than what is different about us.
Our top priority for Penn State next year should be to have a forum in which students of different race, religion, sexual orientation, and ideology can come together to discuss how we can unite as a community of students listen to each other, learn from one another, and fight the evils of bigotry.
