dontno

So I know it's all over the place on CC, but oh well. Colleges are always inundating us with how great diversity is and how their admissions reflects racial and ethnic diversity. They want people of all different backgrounds to come to campus and enrich the community. They want discussions in and outside the classroom to reflect this racial and ethnic diversity. Well just food for thought: how do you think people would react to the following potential scenario. It's an explicit representation of how the university wants diversity to come into the campus.

Imagine you're in a Freshmen seminar discussing a literary work. There's one black student and the rest are Asian or white. Everyone has given their opinion on the work except the black kid who has sat silent the entire class period. The professor or discussion leader turns to him and says, "OK Jamal, we'd all like to hear the black perspective please."

thats WUt i said

I dunno about in class discussions, but out of class discussions I've had have definitely been made better by diversity.

Easy

Diversity is overrated. I just want my classmates to be intelligent. Don't care what they look like, where they're from, or how much their family makes--just if they're smart.

i_wanna_be_Brown

no one should be forced into participation. It would be OK for the teacher to say: "DeShaun, would you like to give us the black perspective?"

fabrizio

I think to myself, “The black perspective? There’s only one? Jamal speaks for his race? He doesn’t speak for himself? Jeez, I’d like to know the black perspective on the intermediate value theorem!”

Diversity is a misguided goal. It is based on a “7-layer salad” mindset: if I can’t see diversity, then it’s not there. Of course, any one who is actually a college student knows that there’s diversity everywhere; you don’t have to search for it. I was relaxing one time last year in my floor’s lounge with my hallmates when the topic of Americanness came up. I suddenly realized that we had one Indian, one Pakistani, two Chinese, one Korean, and one Chicano in the same room. That’s diversity. However, the “7-layer salad” diversity advocates would say, “there isn’t enough because there are too many Asians.” How absurd. If you count the number of languages we could speak natively in that room, you’d have six languages, including English. That’s not diverse?

randomgrandeur

That's stupid. Asking one black person what the black perspective shows a lack of understanding that not all people of one race are the same. I wish a professor would have asked me that. I'd love to leave a verbal barrage of insults on him/her.

thirdfloor

Colleges look for diversity in a lot of ways. Ethnic, national, political, ideological, socio-economical, etc. The main positive to diversifying a campus is that it brings in a wealth of differing experiences, opportunities, and interpretations. Education isn't always about learning from teachers in classrooms--a lot of it is learning and working with your peers, and learning to analyze your own responses to the subject matter.

The situation with a teacher asking for the "black perspective" would fly in the face of any diverse college's goals. Instead of categorizing and quantifying races and groups, colleges that work towards diversity look to shake people out of the mentality that entire groups of people can be stereotyped into one "perspective." I think most people would react to a question like that poorly, and with good reason. Colleges don't admit students because they want them to "represent" their race or economic status or region, but because with a wide array of backgrounds and ideologies, they're hoping that the class as a whole will be exposed to a variety of individual opinions and experiences.

I agree with post #2--my own experiences meeting people with backgrounds or opinions radically different than my own have been really eye-opening, and I would say I'm better for them. It seems like a natural step to recreate those experiences within an academic environment.

BeKindRewind

*pukes* .

thirdfloor

Agreed, randomgrandeur.

Easy

God that is so offensive... I could only imagine how horrified and embarrassed I would be if the professor turned to me and went "Okay [Easy], we'd all like to hear the really good-looking and charming perspective please."

alipes07

His name is Antwan not jamal or deshaun

Meridiem

I'd probably have to get up and leave if I were asked to give any race's perspective. Race shouldn't have much to do with a personal opinion.

BeKindRewind

So please do us all a favor and wake up BeKind.

Student615

There's a fairly thought-provoking essay called "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack", by Peggy McIntosh (Wellesley):

^ White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack - This wasn't typed in flawlessly, but it doesn't seem like content was lost. One of the points McIntosh raises is that

Whatever beef you may or may not have with the piece--and I imagine it could hit nerves--it's an interesting read, particularly for those who have grown up in fairly homogeneous communities. Might bring on a few "Huh..." moments.

OP: Are you suggesting that your scenario is representative of the reasons for which colleges aim to increase campus diversity? If so, I have to agree with the second paragraph of post #7. I think I understand your point, but this just isn't a situation that can be boiled down to one student in one classroom without really losing its essence. The fact that this scenario actually does occur (and I'm sure of that) only speaks to what an important + misunderstood goal diversity can be.

I agree. But again, talking about one classroom or one living room obscures the point. When a campus has hundreds, thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of students, and major segments of the population are still missing, or are totally swallowed up by the majority, that's problematic for multiple reasons. And the problem that you're describing can work the other way, too. Try searching for "divers" (Ctrl/Apple + F and type in "divers") within the text of Jonathan Kozol's "Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Educational Apartheid". Not the point of this thread or of your post, I know, but do realize that the 'opposite' of what you describe can be just as misguided.

I also think that most colleges genuinely want diversity in more than just a racial/ethnic sense. That's not to say that race/ethnicity can't or don't play a large role, but the OP's idea of what campuses are looking for (and bragging about having) seems narrower than my own understanding.

Easy

What the hell is male privilege? Like subsidizing girls' covers at parties? Or fighting in war? Or paying alimony?

I can think of female privilege. Like skating by on life on just one's looks.