I live in a dorm room at school. Over the weekend, someone had some friends over and they got pretty drunk. They tore someone's whiteboard off their door and broke it in pieces and they puked all over the bathroom. But that's not what this diary is about. Someone also wrote racially and sexually charged derogatory comments on an African-American girl's door.
We had to have a floor meeting about it tonight. A police oficer, the head of the judicial office, our hall director, and a couple other high-ranking officials were all in attendance. School policies were covered, obviously, as were the definitions and penalties for hate-crimes. There was another topic covered, too, one that got me thinking and motivated me to write this diary: diversity.
Now, before we start, a little background on me. I am not a racist, by any means. In fact, I have never been one to really notice different races. I mean, sure, I know if someone's skin is a different color, but so is a white person who is really tan. That's about all it is to me: a different color, and that different color registers no more to me than someone with a tan.
However, when these people came to talk about diversity, they said things like, "We should be celebrating our differences!" and "Look around. See how many different races are represented here?" And I looked. I did not realize how many minorities are represented on our floor until tonight. There are Asians, African-Americans, Latinos... and I looked around and thought, "Yeah, there are a lot of different people on this floor!"
Now, I am a child development major. As a student in this field, we have to do observations. I do mine at our school's child development lab, where lots of different races are also represented. These children all inter-mingle. They play, they laugh, they hug, and they don't realize that they are any different than the child sitting next to them. These observations, coupled with my reaction to the diversity speech tonight, got me to pondering the question that is the topic of this diary: Is diversity education doing more harm than good?
I have noticed that children do not seem to care about their differences until about first or second grade. What happens then? That is when we start teaching them about diversity, and how it's okay to be different. I imagine that those kids must have about the same reaction I did. They look around and say, "Yeah, they are different!"
If these children were allowed to continue as they had from the beginning, without the diversity education, would racism be as big a problem as it is now? Or would they just continue as they always had, playing and having fun with all children without caring about their differences? Shouldn't we bring the focus onto what makes us alike?
Now, don't get me wrong, I know that the problem isn't solely with diversity education. Society tends to send mixed messages. "It's okay to be different, but you should only be friends with and date those who are the same." But I do think that diversity education plays a large role.
So, what do you all think?
EDIT: I tend to type before I think. :P My position on this issue is not stated clearly, and it would be too much work to edit the entire entry, so I'll just state it here. My position is that diversity education as it stands now could be contributing to racism, not that we should do away with it all together.