What Is TASP Like?

embeezy
Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:57:23 +0000

UT TASP had the following racial breakdown (excluding factota, there were 18 of us):
6 white
3 black
1 middle eastern
2 south asian
5.5 east asian
.5 hispanic

I come from a tiny town that is more than 95% white, so this was “diverse” to me. Obstinate, on the other hand, attends a school that is less than 5% white (I believe?). Understandably, we have different views about what constitutes diversity. I do think our TASP was fairly white-and-Asian-heavy compared to the ideal/past TASPs, but I wouldn’t say our group was homogeneous by any means.

I consider diversity to be more than a racial issue. I was more bothered by the lack of diversity in political beliefs/religious views than I was by racial makeup, since I believe that what you’re able to contribute to TASP is so much more than the color of your skin. I never would have “swapped out” any TASPer just so we could have a more colorful or manufactured group. I think every white person deserved to be at TASP, just like every black person and every Asian person, etc. I’m sorry that Obstinate was as dissatisfied as he was with our demographics.

I don’t pretend to believe that our TASP was perfect by any means, and I too would encourage minorities to apply. However, I think we should abandon the idea of TASP being a recipe that requires exact ingredients to be meaningful, when in actuality it is a hodge-podge of imperfect awesome that can’t be measured in percentages and numbers.