Diversity

I am a graduate student in Human Development and Family Studies at Auburn University, and that department is housed in the College of Human Sciences. The dean of this college has decided that a major emphasis of this academic year is going to be to “Celebrate Diversity.” Last Thursday we had the first annual convocation for celebrating diversity and upon asking some of my profs what a convocation is they replied, I have no idea; and yet we (students and faculty) were heavily encouraged (required) to attend.

So I went, and as I feared it was a parade of university dignitaries across the platform, each offering his or her views of why diversity is important. But there were three people who spoke who caught my attention and my imagination. Two out of the three people were African-American, but each one of them made diversity a personal matter. It wasn’t an “issue.” It wasn’t a “problem.” To them it was a reality, something to be joined into, to take part in.

I think that is why I was so cynical going to this convocation. When I hear the word ‘diversity’ I think of it in terms of race, differences in culture. Also, the “Celebrate Diversity” signs found around our building which promote the effort have the rainbow as the background, which has in recent years been associated with the Gay and Lesbian rights movement. I feel like people who promote diversity have their own agenda and it has nothing to do with differences between people, except to promote equality between people. Is this really what they’re trying to get across? Am I wrong in some of these assumptions? Is diversity the same as equality?

One of the people who shared his own experience of diversity, who made it personal, a person who has overcome some great obstacles in his life to become an academic vice-president at AU finished his comments and as he descended the stairs two women in the front row gave this man a standing ovation. All of us were applauding, and each speaker drew some degree of applause, but this one person seemed to have said something that was more valued than all the others. And I was very conscious of this, and conscious that most of the pictures on the slide presentation that preceded the convocation were pictures of women and people of color, and I began thinking, “Am I valued in this whole diversity thing.” I think that is part of the problem I have. Do they want a white male to be a part of this whole thing? And this may come from my assumption that when they say diversity, they may actually be meaning equality, in which case the reality is that Caucasian Males are not restricted from any opportunities in American culture.

I think I am digressing a little, and these are just some of the feelings and thoughts that have been swimming in my grey matter for the past several days. To cut to the point, I came to the conclusion that diversity is a reality. Diversity is, “the state of being diverse, or distinct.” When we value people because they are a different race, isn’t that racism? Don’t we really want to value people for who they are, as people, understanding their differences and not holding the differences against them? Isn’t this called empathy, the ability to see something from someone else’s perspective?

So I say, “Embrace Diversity and Celebrate Empathy.” These terms at least have less baggage for me.