I have noticed an ongoing conversation at McCormick and a rumor of discontent. Regarding a topic that seems to be on everyone’s radar, and this, is no coincidence. I have had some thoughts on it myself and so I thought it appropriate to join the great and noble undertaking of publicly voicing my thoughts on diversity. It is my hope to give voice to many conversations I have had in mostly informal settings, my own observations and feelings and the quiet hope that I think we all share that someone will get off their ass and do something about it.
Many of us came to McCormick because of this very issue. We were told that this is a school with no racial or denominational majorities. At McCormick we will find diversity. And who can argue with that. If one were to group all the students, faculty and staff into the common room with little signs that claim geography and religious background of origin it would be a wonderfully diverse picture. Where I have heard disappointment arising is in the next and necessary step of figuring out what to do with that picture. Many of us feel that we have not been given the tools to engage this diversity in a way that is healthy and mutually fulfilling. I believe that underlying this disappointment is the fact that many of us have seen this need in our home and educational communities and we want to do something about it. This impulse is a very good thing and represents energy that we need to capitalize on. Simply wanting to do something about it is good but not good enough; we need and desire concrete action and real answers. These will simply be handed to us from our school’s administration, they can put us in a room together but they can’t make us talk to each other. And I do not think it is as simple as just talking to each other either. I do have a suggestion (for some of us) but bear with me for a bit, I’m getting there.
We have been brought up to believe that different kinds of people do not get along together. The overt idea that one is superior to another is mostly passé in the public sphere. Culture now tends toward the idea that different kinds (though equally valid in their own right) cannot and should not get along together. We are asked to buy into a standard of coexistence and tolerance instead of collaboration and genuine community. The Muslim way of life and the Christian way of life cannot be reconciled. White people should not live in the south side (with the exception of Hyde Park) and straight people should not live in Boystown. The claim is not based on an objective fact of difference but on the idea that a defined group’s way of life is so subjective that someone from another group cannot possibly understand or live in genuine community with them. This line of thinking has been identified as the post-modern version of good old fashion Civil Rights era superior/inferior style racism. As we see it today it is often applied not only to difference in race but in any definable characteristic that might be used to draw identity based lines between people.
I don’t buy that. I really don’t think that our differences need to separate us that much. As a matter of fact I have had valuable relationships with people who are in another kind category than myself. With women, GLTB people, people of other religious backgrounds, and even with people of color. In case you don’t know me or haven’t figured it out; I am without color (more and more the longer winter lasts) that is, white. Diversity comes in many forms (more than I would consider trying to list) but for many of us racial diversity takes center stage in our minds and hearts as a question that we need the tools to address. We have seen it the lives of communities that remain hurt and segregated as well as in our parents’ stories of struggle or lack thereof. We, as people who care about each other and the church, are frustrated that the truism is true: Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week.
We all need to do something about this. Since McCormick has no racial majority, I don’t know what most of you need to do but for those of us who are white I have an idea. I am interested in doing something about our concerns and I think that it needs to start with white people thinking about white culture. I feel like I don’t have a good idea of what white culture means and I don’t think I am alone. The phenomenon of white culture being socially enforced as normative is a self-perpetuating phenomenon that cycles around the lack of white awareness of it. It has created a monolithic structure that white people cannot see, maybe because we stand on top of it. We need to intentionally talk about it, flesh out the bad and good in it. We need to think about values that we hold how those have been imposed on others. We need to do this work first for ourselves, to understand who we are and to make sense of our own racial identity. Part of that will be asking people who have been compelled to conform to white culture to accompany us in our journey and compassionately help us understand. If we can get at some of the truth behind our culture I believe that appropriate actions will be easier to find; though probably not easier to undertake. We will be trying to wrap our minds around and begin dismantling white privilege in our school and community. Unless white people do the hard work of looking at ourselves there will be no hope of scraping its surface. White people cannot hope to speak truth to power unless we first confront the power that is represented in our own selves.
So if you are interested in doing this then talk to me. Email me, talk to me around campus. Talk to other people too. We need to connect, set a time and actually do it. I think first it should be people who identify themselves or have been identified by others as white. The first voices we need to hear are our own. We need to closely follow that with non-white voices that want to help us understand the truth. Maybe then together we can build a more hopeful future than we currently stand to inherit.
[article has been prepared for print in the McCormick Herald]
ajdele
