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?Diversity? Means Being ?Uncomfortable? And Saying You?re Sorry

?In diversity,? says Terryl J. Ross, director of Oregon State University?s office of community and diversity, ?maybe the two most important words are ?I?m sorry.??

And LaVonda Wagner, who became Oregon State?s women?s basketball coach despite her concerns about OSU?s lack of ?diversity,? said at a recent Martin Luther King breakfast meeting that ?in dealing with issues of race, Oregon State needed to ?get comfortable being uncomfortable.??

To see why there is, or needs to be, so much sorrow and discomfort at Oregon State, read Peter Schmidt?s excellent, long article about the hothouse racial atmosphere there in the Chronicle of Higher Education. If you can?t access it online, go to a library. In the meantime, here are a couple of my favorite nuggets that reveal a problem with ?diversity? that can?t be emphasized too much (though I try as hard as I can to emphasize it too much):

Among the people who say they have come to see Oregon State?s campus as a racially hostile environment is Shannon S. Warren, a recent graduate who now plans to work here as a research associate in the ethnic-studies department.

Ms. Warren, who formerly served as director of multicultural affairs for the student government and as president of the university?s Black Student Union, says some of her professors here expressed surprise when she excelled academically. They seemed to call on her in class discussions as if they thought of her as a spokesperson for her race....

?It is really hard on this campus,? agrees DaMarcus Redeau, a senior who works as a liaison for the university?s black cultural center. ?Sometimes you go to classes and your classmates and teachers don?t understand where you are coming from ? like every day you have to educate somebody.?

Ms. Warren sounds like she?s a typical example of the beneficiaries of the new and growing ?diversity? industry ? director of multicultural affairs for the student government and president of the Black Student Union in college, now beginning her diversicrat career as an assistant in an ethnic studies department. Since she?s a professional race person, why in the world wouldn?t many people view her as a ?spokesperson for her race,? especially if she received any preferences along the way based on her ability to provide ?diversity? to others?

Where Ms. Warren is offended that people regard her as a representative of those mysterious, different, ?diversity?-providing blacks, however, Mr. Redeau is offended because people don?t recognize his difference, that where he?s ?coming from? is very different from where they (whoever they are) come from.

Here?s my concluding thought: as long as we?re race-obsessed, we?ll be race-obsessed. (How?s that for profundity?) The way to reduce the racial temperature on campuses, and elsewhere, is to start treating everyone, and insisting that everyone be treated, without regard to race.

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 11, 2008 (boomark / email).