Letter to the Editor

This is a response to an editorial I read which stated that we should ignore race and that celebrating diversity only leads to more divisions:

I recently read an editorial about diversity in the last edition of flyer news, which presented some ideas that troubled me. Diversity is one of the most challenging issues to talk about. On one hand, we are all human beings and genetically there is no dividing line between racial groups. On the other hand, society has placed people into well-defined categories. Ignoring the fact that these categories exist will not make problems of racism, sexism, and heterosexism go away.

I would challenge any student to drive through the neighborhoods of Dayton and say that race does not matter. White flight and racism in housing are extremely detrimental; where a person lives affects the types of schooling and services they have access to. Another problem is that many kids are taught to identify “bad areas” by the racial groups they see when driving through them.

There are other problems that exist that are more covert. I think that every person is socialized to group people into categories: What do you think (if only for a second) when you see a person of a different ethnicity in baggy clothes standing on a city corner? Or what intelligence level do you associate with someone who speaks in an urban or rural dialect that may not follow the rules of standard English? Unless we are honest and open about our prejudicial tendencies, we will never overcome them.

Celebrating diversity is about giving people who have been constantly looked down upon by society a sense of pride in themselves. Imagine living everyday in fear of being judged negatively just because of one or two defining characteristics.

I think that personally as a woman I had to overcome the idea of womanhood that was thrown in my face daily by advertisements. We were basically told that to be worth anything in society we had to be beautiful and appealing to men. Many girls, especially teens, have extremely low self-esteems because of the pressures put upon them by society. It is wonderful to see woman and men as equals, but that certainly does not mean we should not work to remedy problems that do exist. 

Institutional and personal prejudice affects everyone, even white, heterosexual males. I agree that we defiantly need to see the humanity and dignity of every single person rather then their outward appearance; but I think that the first step towards achieving this goal is to be open about prejudice rather then ignoring the realities created by society.